Lidl revealed the full extent of its new partnership with Ladies Gaelic Football at Croke Park yesterday and in our view it has the potential to be one of the most transformational relationships between sport and business of recent years.
The financial investment in year one of an initial three year deal is €1.5 million. Much of that will be spent on print, outdoor and TV ad campaigns but at the heart of all of those will be the kind of imagery that will raise the bar immeasurably in the portrayal of women in sport.
In the 1990’s the sport of hurling was in the doldrums. Hard to imagine now but it took the marketing smarts of Guinness to turn what was seen as a mainly rural poor relation to football into the playground of heroes.
Standard
Lidl can do the same for Ladies football and raise the standard for the way in which women’s sport is perceived.
They join major international brands including Liberty Insurance, Continental Tyres, Aon and AIB who have looked at the sporting market and chosen Women’s sport as a place where they can get involved and make a difference.
Lidl will become the official retail partner of the association and also the title sponsor of the Lidl Ladies National Football Leagues which gets underway on January 31st throughout the country; of the Lidl Post Primary Schools Competitions, the Lidl Gaelic4Mothers & Others programme in a supporting role through the All Ireland Championship.
Planned
“This has been planned and put together since last summer,” Lidl Sponsorship Manager and member of the Sport for Business Young Leaders Panel for 2016, Jennifer Gleeson told Sport for Business yesterday.
“A television ad is being filmed right now which will show the commitment and the strength of the players putting them very much centre stage of the whole campaign”
“When we revealed our involvement after the global storm that ‘Ladyball’ created we said that we were in this to give serious support and that will be seen at every stage of what we do through the next three years.”
Focus
“From this weekend imagery promoting the sport will be prominent in each of our 143 stores around the country. We will be unveiling bursary schemes for clubs and players that will make a real personal difference to individuals, and we will, through the promotion of the association, give a greater national focus on women’s sport than has perhaps ever been achieved before.”
This is sponsorship which runs through every level of both the brand and the rights holder.
“At Lidl we look for opportunities where we can make a real difference,” said Managing Director JP Scally who fulfilled a childhood dream by delivering his opening speech in Irish to an audience at Croke Park, albeit one slightly less than the 83,000 he once imagined as a boy in Westmeath.
“We found that in Ladies Gaelic Football and this is a way we will engage with our communities and our customers in the strongest fashion since we first came to Ireland in 2000.”
“We want to get our more than 4,000 employees through the country really engaged with the sport at national and local level.”
“We have been long term advocates of health and fitness in the workplace and this, our first association with sport in Ireland, is central to that”
Unprecedented
The commercial partnership will give Ladies Gaelic Football players an unprecedented level of promotion and will have a real positive impact on the sport at every level from grassroots right up to intercounty level.
A social media campaign using the hashtag #SeriousSupport will also accompany all activities.
“This is a great day for the Ladies Gaelic Football Association,” said LGFA President Marie Hickey.
“We have shown continuous growth year on year and this is what has attracted such a prestigious sponsor as Lidl.”
“They have immediately shown their commitment to our sport through their impressive and eye catching advertising campaign and their financial investment in the sport will have a huge effect on the game throughout the country.”
“With a partner like Lidl we know that we can continue to develop the sport and continue with the impressive growth that the game has experienced over the past decade.”
“This will be an exciting three years for all associated with Ladies Gaelic Football.”
The partnership was negotiated and put in place by PSG Sponsorship while the creative idea behind the teaser campaign for Ladyball was conceived by Chemistry.
In 2015 Ladies Football CEO Helen O’Rourke featured in the annual Sport for Business list of the 50 Most Influential Women in Irish Sport. After delivering a European record 33,000 spectators at last year’s All Ireland Final and now this deal with Lidl, it is safe to assume she will be in it again when we start to publish in March.
