On The Pegs June 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 6 | Page 153
On The Pegs VOL. 4 ISSUE 7 - July 2020 153
Doing the business
“I see G2F as a unique full-service agency,” says Jake. “We do PR, design, web
and mobile phone apps, rider management and a big thing for us is event management.
We can run an event from the ground up or provide services to existing
events as we did at Matterley Basin with the early MXGPs – the commercial aspects,
selling trade space and programmes – and the Motocross of Nations down
there in 2006.
“So we have supported other events with services in terms of bringing value
and sponsorship in right through to running events of our own starting back in
2002 with the Red Bull Moonwalker Trial in Manchester. We have gone on to do
three other Red Bull City Trials, plus Red Bull Breakers in the scrapyard in Rotherham
and something as diverse as the wheelie project. Obviously, Dougie held the
handlebars and did the hard bit, but every other aspect of that was us. Getting all
the permissions, bringing the team together, making the plan – that’s what we
do.
“My phone is on twenty-four-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week and those clients
we work for – be it the FIM, Dougie or whoever – know that we will always deal
with a situation whatever time of day it is, wherever it is in the World. It doesn’t
say that in our contract, but because of the relationships we have we will always
do that.
“Sometimes I have to call upon staff out of hours because something has happened.
Everyone has to be part of that team process.”
Loyalty
One of G2F’s biggest clients is the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme.
Known universally as the FIM, it is the global governing body for motorcycle
sport and G2F is involved in many aspects of its operations.
“My introduction to the FIM came through Dougie,” says Jake. “We were travelling
to the Trial World Championship and I was one of the few people there doing
communications and journalism. Ignacio Verneda – who was then the head of
the FIM Trials Commission and went on to become the CEO of the FIM – identified
that we were there and doing a job.
“It was a time when the FIM had a brief to start communicating more and Ignacio
approached me back in 2004. Dougie opened the door and then clients like
Red Bull and Honda have all come from the relationship with Dougie.
“It’s definitely been a mutually beneficial relationship – Dougie invested in his
career with us. Here we are in 2020 and it is seventeen years since he last won