Centra, sponsors of the GAA All Ireland Hurling Championship have launched a new campaign called ‘Choices Define Us’.
It will cover TV advertising, online, posters and in-store as well as on social media and the campaign was launched at an in-person event in the Dean Hotel in Dublin yesterday, at which Sport for Business was a guest.
The sporting element of it was the appearance of Cork Hurler Patrick Horgan and while host psychologist Dr Maureen Gaffney might not have been too up to speed on the intricacies of the Munster Hurling Championship, she did enable him to deliver a few gems on the importance of sport within communities.
“I didn’t have a say when I was a child but one of the most important choices that was made on my behalf by my parents was to get me involved in Glen Rovers, my local GAA club,” he said to an audience of agencies, media and influencers.
“The friends I made in those first few weeks are still among my best friends today and it probably helped to define me more than anything else.”
“During the lockdown, I met a parent of a young child and just asked what sports they played but she said that he wasn’t really interested and didn’t play.”
“I thought of what it meant to me to be part of sport and part of a club and would encourage anyone to persist, even if it is outside of a child’s comfort zone at first.”
To mark the launch of the campaign, Centra commissioned an in-depth study to provide a deeper understanding of the choices people are making in Ireland in this period of revaluation, forced by the pandemic.
It revealed that 46 per cent of us feel our daily choices have the power to impact positively on society.
The research also revealed that over half of people in Ireland reported that they worry that having made a choice, whether it is the right choice.
In contrast, older adults, although they like to have more choice options than younger adults do, they are more assured about their decisions – most likely because they are more settled in their choices and buying patterns, and at a deeper level, are less inclined to fuss about what they see as less important in the great scheme of things.
“This research shows that people are pondering on the value of what they are doing,” said Gaffney. “Am I making the right choices about how I live and how I work? It is important to better understand the nature and importance of choice”.
“Although people value choice, they are aware that too much choice makes the process of decision making too difficult. The finding that making a good choice is made more difficult in certain conditions is consistent with psychological research findings that the act of making a choice, even a choice we like making, is cognitively taxing and uses up resources that we need for other kinds of thinking.”
“This is a defining time in our lives,” said Centra Marketing Director Ray Kelly, “where people are making more considered choices than ever.”
“At Centra we take great care to understand what choices people are making and the impact that those choices will have on how people live, work, and eat so we can continue to adapt and evolve our retail offers and experiences to meet the needs of communities across Ireland.”
“There is a clear recognition from this research that the local shop serves as a hub for the community. We feel great pride and responsibility knowing that so many people choose to walk through our doors every day and we know that with the future of hybrid work Centra will play an even greater role in many people’s lives as they choose to opt for more local amenities closer to home. We are committed to giving our customers the best choice every day.”
It will be interesting to see how the campaign is adapted for the Hurling Championship sponsorship over the course of the coming months.
Sport for Business Partners
