Shapland Swim School
At age 69, Sunshine Coast resident Chris Shapland took on a challenge that would daunt many younger and fitter people when he swam 33km across the English Channel in September 2016. As the owner of Shapland Swim Schools, a swim school with multiple locations across South East Queensland, Chris came from a long pedigree of swimmers. Through the Channel crossing which involved swimming from southern England to the coastline of France, Shapland hoped to draw attention to the fact that provided you are taught a good swimming technique when you are young, as the Shapland Swim School aim to do with the hundreds of Queensland children they teach to swim each year, it can be a life saving and life long activity. And that’s exactly what he did! With our assistance the campaign was mobilised with just a short lead in time, we were able to achieve 53 quality media pieces in publications ranging from those in the UK to those in Australia and the swim world, as well as radio and getting the Sunrise TV camera crew on the boat! As we also manage the organisations social media, we were also able to maximise the impact of the campaign through regular social media posts and ads, and to grow their online community significantly through the campaign period.