“Superstar by name, superstar by nature! Jill Kent has been phenomenal in helping to drive positive awareness about AmeriCamp and my brands. She has truly become part of the Invasion Camp Group family! She is first-class!”
Lee McAteer, Founder and CEO, Invasion Camp Group
After being told by ‘TV Dragon’ Duncan Bannatyne that he’d never be able to compete with one of America’s best known brands, Lee McAteer set out to prove him wrong. The Salford-based young entrepreneur’s mix of summer camp, gap year and tour companies aimed at UK Millennials is set to turn over £4M in 2017 and employs 100.
Aged 19, McAteer took a summer job at a camp in the States, a placement that was arranged by Camp America which is a household name in the US, but after having a bad experience he thought there must be a better way of doing things. Not only has McAteer gone on to launch a successful rival dubbed AmeriCamp, which already has double the social media following of Camp America, he has created other summer camp brands – including Camp Thailand which is the UK’s most popular activity for 18-24-year-olds over the summer break. The ever-industrious McAteer has also launched work brands like AusJob and ThaiJobs, all part of his Invasion Camp Group company. In 2017, his companies will collectively send over 20,000 young Brits around the world – all with the aim of making a positive impact.
PR Superstar was enlisted to raise awareness of McAteer’s personal brand as a serial entrepreneur, as well as those of his companies, with a focus on AmeriCamp.
I captured McAteer’s entrepreneurial journey in a newsworthy press release angled around AmeriCamp and shared this with journalist colleagues on the national press, on TV & radio, and in the business media. It did the trick and soon journalists were chasing me for interviews! With McAteer being Manchester-based, I worked around his commitments to arrange face-to-face meetings with journalists when he was visiting London on business – he is a such a larger-than-life character and a real live wire that I was keen for the press to meet him in the flesh. Editors working on The FT to The Times to the BBC reached out to have one-to-ones with him. I accompanied our press release with images of McAteer touring his various summer camps around the world – from the US to Cambodia – to add a splash of colour.
Over the summer, McAteer was catapulted to international fame after he turned his Invasion HQ into the world’s largest adult ball pit and filmed it – it went viral! I PR’ed the footage to Social Media Editors on the national press who lapped it up – The Independent newspaper ran the fun film on their Facebook page and it generated over 250K views in a matter of hours. The story was picked up by journalists on the tabloids who ran features on McAteer, hailing him ‘Britain’s Best Boss’.
My work now begins to PR some of McAteer’s 30 other+ brands – and counting – as part of his Invasion Camp Group, kicking off with his Wrestling Travel company, the only one of its kind in the UK.
