With various different schedules, specific car requests, and multiple cities to travel between, the 2018 FIFA World Cup was one of our biggest events to date. We worked with global media companies, football associations, organising committees and VIP FIFA guests to help them cover the matches, travel in comfort, and stay on schedule.
The following case study is focused on our work for media companies and agencies.
The challenge
This was a huge event, demanding over 600 vehicles across 11 Russian cities. We worked with three agencies, Cartan Global, VIP SportsTravel, GMR Marketing, as well as several media companies - NBC, Fox Sport, Host Broadcast Services (HBS). We also worked with the Qatar Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, who is organising the next World Cup in 2022.
Each media company was covering a different national team, and each agency had a different timetable, so their schedules varied hugely.
Standards and expectations were extremely high, so the whole team had to be organised and ready to impress. It was important to us to represent Russia well and help foreign delegates feel comfortable in an unfamiliar country.
Our solution
Preparation started at the preliminary draw in Saint Petersburg in 2015. We used that time to get to know the media companies and partners we’d be working with.
Before the 2018 event, the same media companies were attending the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. We transported their staff between the 4 main cities, St Petersburg, Kazan, Moscow, and Sochi, which was a great opportunity to train before the main event and fine tune the details.
We started actively hiring drivers, communicating with our media clients, and understanding their complex, varied needs a year in advance. We simplified logistics for Fox Sport, taking care of ground transportation, hotels, and flights bookings. The Accord - Driving the Game team began working with a Qatar-based TV channel, providing a shuttle service between their hotel, the stadiums, and the TV studio on Red Square. We even chartered planes for them when they had a tight schedule and needed to get to a match quickly.
This event called for us to be as flexible as possible with vehicles and routes. We provided dedicated managers, and sometimes teams of managers, for each agency. They became part of the clients’ teams and were always reachable. When Cartan Global needed some last minute assistance implementing their route and transportation plan, we were prepared and ready despite the short notice.
It would have been impossible to manage this many vehicles in multiple cities at the same time without the iTransfers tool. Our high-tech, patented transport management tool allowed us to organise the entire transport fleet and keep passengers safe with tracking abilities.
The media companies were very specific about the quality of the vehicles they needed, down to the interior lining of their Mercedes-Maybachs. It was impossible to find luxury cars of this standard in small Russian cities, so we transported them from Moscow.
When one of our clients ordered a lower class of vehicles than they needed by chance, we managed to secure the upgrade for them without passing on the cost because client satisfaction always comes first for us.
Clients’ schedules could be unpredictable, so we needed to be able to provide cars to any destination as soon as possible. For VIP SportsTravel, we had a car transporting truck on stand by between Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod, so we could service them at short notice.
The results
We received great feedback after FIFA 2018, including lots of ‘thank yous’, referrals, and requests for our services at future events.
We also continued working with TV companies based in Qatar, France, and the US after their great experiences in 2018.
Key stats:
- 11 Russian cities
- 2,500+ guests
- 600+ vehicles and 750+ employees
- 24/7 dispatch centre