In this series, Agency Correspondent Heather Nicholls takes you behind the scenes of some of the most compelling brand activations and events.
In the sixth edition, we meet Emota, the agency behind Shell’s Eco-marathon.
The brief
Shell Eco-marathon is a major global student engineering competition. Teams design and build ultra-energy-efficient vehicles before racing them at tracks across three continents.
Emota’s brief was to deliver consistent, safe experiences for more than 3,000 students from 38 countries competing simultaneously in Indianapolis, Lombok and Nogaro, while accommodating local regulations and cultural differences. The agency handled production, logistics and health and safety for the entire global programme.
The execution
Rather than treating each location separately, Emota had to develop an integrated global delivery model. In France, the agency constructed a 140-metre paddock tent where teams could work on their vehicles, plus a campsite accommodating up to 1,000 students. The team spent three weeks on site overseeing construction and dismantling.
Emota’s in-house health and safety team completed more than 1,500 staff inductions across the three events, while the logistics operation included building a dedicated registration website, providing daily lunches for 1,200+ people in Indonesia, and managing 4,000+ merchandise items.
The agency also handled all creative elements, from signage to event maps and branding. In 2023, Emota helped Shell implement their new visual identity for the marathon, designing materials for reuse in 2024 – an approach that saved more than 300kg of CO2.
The partnership
Emota’s relationship with Shell has grown over several years into what both sides describe as a strategic partnership. “We really love working with the Emota team because they have such a proactive way of working,” says Donna Vecino, global delivery lead for Shell Eco-marathon. “They’re always good at communicating with us upfront and there’s a real sense of transparency with them.”
Emota’s head of event production EU Saira Dickinson said: “Success is measured by the experiences had by the students involved as well as the safety of all involved. The production roll-out was slick and safe and the complex logistics and communications were robust and clear.”
The results speak for themselves: 91% of participating students said they would return next year. For Johanna Undery, senior account director at Emota, the key learning has been collaboration: “A project of this size can only be successful when we all align on one point of truth with one aligned goal. Communication and a sense of humour are essential.”