An innovative live event introduced sports equipment manufacturer Umbro’s new kit for the England football team to the media recently.

Held at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, the engaging and interactive experience, created by RPM in conjuction with Threepipe, launched not only the 2007/2008 England football strip, but also Umbro’s new X Boot Destroyer, X Boot III and the new official England matchball.

RPM created an experience that enabled the media and consumer audience to interact with the technology behind the products, before each one was unveiled by a group of top England players from both the men’s and women’s squads, including Michael Owen, John Terry, Owen Hargreaves, Steven Gerrard, Rachel Yankee, Kelly Smith, Frank Lampard and Paul Robinson.

The England players reveal Umbro's new kit for 2007/2008 

 
The kit was unveiled in the main auditorium, which RPM designed to create an authentic football feel. The players emerged wearing the new strip, following an eye-catching audio visual sequence building up to the dramatic reveal, created to appeal to the visual media.
 
Zones were created enabling the media to learn more about each element of the boot, ball and shirt. A treadmill was also in situ with a thermal imaging camera to demonstrate how the new shirt will keep the players cool while they’re in action.
 
Commenting on the launch, Umbro UK’s Duncan Thompson said: "The objective of this event was to communicate the technology behind each of our performance products and the interactive elements that run through the entire experience enabled us to do that. To really appeal to the media, we felt we had to differentiate this event from the norm. RPM and Threepipe created a launch which truly had that ‘wow’ factor."