The Power of an Underdog’s Tale – and how public relations can help you punch above your weight

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Leicester City’s Monumental Success taps the British Psyche – and your brand could too

The website of Leicester City FC, Premier League ChampionsOFFERING odds of 5000/1 is a bookies way of saying ‘no chance – you’re wasting your time’.

Yet they are the now famous odds that were placed on Leicester City becoming champions of England. For those living on the dark side of the moon, the Foxes were recently crowned Premier League winners with two games remaining in the season.

An incredible feat and arguably the greatest David versus Goliath tale many of us will ever live through.


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Leicester City, with one of the smallest budgets in the top tier and who missed relegation by a whisker last season, managed to outfox each one of the Billionaire Boys Club that regularly sit at the top end of the table, bringing jubilation to a nation of old romantics in the process.

Leicester City Players having a PartyThe fairytale became front page fodder, with effectively all the major UK based papers featuring the Foxes on the front page. The team’s success also sent social media into near meltdown and dominated airwaves on both TV and radio.

And that was just in the UK. Such is the scale of Leicester’s achievement that the modest city has been in the glare of the international media spotlight since April, when people really started to believe the team could win club football’s biggest league.

Not bad for a good news sports story about a midlands team with a small clutch of international players and no major egos (of course, things may have changed by now).

If you need further evidence of the power of the underdog story, just look to Sly Stallone. It was no fluke that the Rocky Balboa franchise was and continues to be a success. It’s been proven that the human brain responds positively to tales of the underdog

Harnessed properly, the underdog success stories are by their very nature intriguing and compelling – but there’s a bit more behind that.  Such stories ticks all the right boxes to give us a fuzzy feeling inside – thanks to our innate sense of fairness, belief in overcoming the odds and longing for something to root for.

It goes the same for businesses wanting to get publicity in a field dominated by big players.

The chances are your business probably already competes with bigger names in terms of service, price and product on a smaller budget – and the exact same can apply in the media world.


Blurred figures hard at work in the busy pr office of Scottish public relations agency Holyrood PRDoes your business feel like the underdog which deserves to break into the big time? Work with a PR agency which shares your passion and has already written its own underdog story


Scotland is by no means a huge nation. Of course there are global, world leading firms here in the industries that this land naturally excels in, but the real foundation of the economy is the SME, the small to medium sized enterprises.

And that means that when it come to David and Goliath comparisons, there is a wealth of small, smart and nimble businesses doing innovative, clever, genuinely interesting things, often to outwit cumbersome global Goliaths.

We’ve won countless awards and achieved business transforming publicity for our work with so called underdogs.  Below are links to just a couple of examples:

Thames Water Came to Scotland as a Small Player in a New Market – Holyrood were called in to help

Gilson Gray – Expansion for Ambitious Young Legal firm – and Holyrood PR has been with them every step of the way 

As many bookies will have learned the hard way, underestimate the small players at your peril. It’s something we certainly don’t here at Holyrood PR.


Help your business go from underdog to champion with the help of our Scottish PR agency

Isn’t it time you checked out they many PR services on offer that could help your business to punch well above its weight?

We’d love the chance to chat with you about what is possible. We’re a chatty bunch, so feel free to get in touch at any time.

You can call us on 0131 561 2244, or complete the simple form, below, and we’ll get straight back to you:

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