It’s a massive weekend for sport with the Ryder Cup in evening primetime and the small matter of another million plus TV audience for the All Ireland Football Final Replay.
We caught up with AIG Sponsorship Manager John Gillick on what the extra bite at the cherry means for the team sponsor.
“The replay is a huge boost for us as a sponsor,” he told us in conversation in front of the giant Dublin jersey adorning the front of the building.
“You look at the platform that the game is shown on, in terms of TV especially, and it’s one of the most viewed events of the year in Ireland.”
International
“The international exposure through Sky and GAAGo is very important for us as well.”
“It’s a massive opportunity to get your brand name and logo seen by a huge and really engaged viewership.”
“Before and after the game the build up is wall to wall. The coverage online and offline is huge and a real added bonus for us as team sponsor of Dublin GAA to be right at the centre of it.”
AIG monitors many aspects of its business and sponsorship is one of those.
“Globally we use Repucom to track the value of what we get from the partnership and there are agencies in Ireland that do similar which we have looked at.”
Golden Question
“It’s the golden question, what does sponsorship deliver and we have a very good sense of the value to us.”
“It works in a number of ways.”
“With a very strong, well activated sponsorship you don’t have to invest as heavily in direct response advertising. You have the elements of trust and credibility that goes with the sponsorship and on the back of that there are other areas where you can spend less to drive your message.”
“It reduces the cost per quote and the cost per sale which are the lifeblood of the business and we have driven that down considerably in the three years to date that we have been involved with Dublin GAA.”
Value
Off the record Gillick revealed a ballpark figure on the value of the sponsorship to the company. It is one which would suggest that even at a high headline figure, this was a deal which was delivering through sport for the business in a very real way.
It might not be as dramatic in future years as it was at the start but the return on an annual basis suggests that this is a deal which will live a bit longer than the initial term to the end of 2018.
“The replay does present a challenge. We expected that the year would wind down after the Ladies Final and we had already planned to move on to the next phase of overall marketing and the major project of Ireland playing against the AIG sponsored All Blacks in November.”
“The hectic demand for tickets is also pretty challenging and it feels like the replay is even more in demand than the first game.”
Discount
AIG runs a special discount for Dublin GAA fans offering 15% off quotes, a significant boost at a time of rising prices. It was ten per cent earlier in the year but we raised that to 15% coming into the All Ireland Finals and it’s proved really popular.
There has not been time to produce any more of the video series behind #BackingEveryStep but it does give extra exposure to what was a very well produced programme.
“We have to keep stepping it up and this year we had access to film at training for the Denis Bastick video which was a first.”
Trust
“We’ve a great trust built up between the Dublin GAA commercial team led by Tomás Quinn and with Jim Gavin.”
“Hopefully now they’ll go an do the business on Saturday and come away with Sam again.”
We won’t think about another replay for now, at least until 7pm on Saturday if that happens…”
