Three of Ireland’s leading brands highlighted how creativity, insight and measurement are driving stronger sponsorship results at the 2026 ESA Ireland Sponsorship Showcase.

Three of the standout winners from this year’s ESA Awards in London shared the thinking, creativity and commercial impact behind their work at the ESA Ireland Sponsorship Showcase this week, illustrating the world renown of the sponsorship landscape in Ireland.

The session opened with a reflection on Irish success at the European Sponsorship Association Awards, where Irish campaigns earned six commendations and nine wins across 11 categories.

Among those recognised were Centra for Suss or Sound, Movember in partnership with the GAA and GPA, The Irish Times with Ireland’s Greenest Places in partnership with Electric Ireland, the Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon, Very as proud sponsor of Traitors Ireland, and Guinness for both its work with IDA on the Never Settle boot and its Premier League campaign A Match Made in Heaven.

The showcase then focused on three winning campaigns from Guinness, Cairn and Sky Ireland, before Bord Bia rounded off the morning with a look ahead to Bloom 2026.

Lovely Day

 

 

Guinness Marketing Manager Aine Kavanagh detailed how the brand’s partnership with Aiken Promotions helped transform Guinness from a winter and rugby-led brand into one with a credible place at the heart of the Irish summer.

Guinness has long enjoyed powerful associations with Christmas and the Six Nations, but that strength also created a weakness, with the brand effectively stepping back from April onwards and surrendering the summer season to competitors.

Kavanagh described that as both a brand and business problem, particularly given the importance of summer as a major beer-drinking occasion and a recruitment opportunity for new and lighter drinkers.

The solution was the creation of the Lovely Day for Guinness platform, supported by a five-year partnership with Aiken that unlocked access to 35 festivals and events across the island of Ireland.

Rather than simply covering festival properties in logos and branding, Guinness chose to co-create more immersive and considered experiences with Aiken.

This included a refreshed summer visual identity developed with Irish artist Katie O’Burke, a festival-led merchandising line, and the Toucan Pub at All Together Now, which provided a Guinness 0.0-led moderation experience programmed around earlier daytime moments.

The campaign also extended beyond the festival field, using wider advertising and culture-led activations to change perceptions of Guinness as a summer brand.

The results have been striking. Guinness is now the most recalled brand at summer festivals, sitting seven points ahead of its nearest competitor year-on-year. It has also shifted brand perception around being suitable for summer occasions, outdoor drinking and daytime moments.

Kavanagh said the work had also succeeded in recruiting younger and more female drinkers, helped by presenting Guinness in a less formal and more culturally open way.

Among the lessons she highlighted were the value of genuine immersion over over-branding, the importance of sustainability, and the need to offer consumers meaningful choice, particularly through Guinness 0.0.

 

Building Community

 

 

Tom Noonan, Brand Director at Cairn, then spoke about the company’s partnership with Community Games, winner of the award for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Sponsorship.

For Cairn, the challenge was very different. Operating in the highly sensitive housing sector, the business needed to build trust, relevance and credibility in communities across Ireland, while also speaking to decision-makers around policy and funding.

Noonan described housing as “the defining social challenge of our time” and said the brand had to be especially careful and deliberate in how it showed up in public.

After beginning with above-the-line advertising to improve awareness, Cairn moved into sponsorship as a way of generating emotional connection and demonstrating its long-term commitment to building inclusive, thriving communities.

Community Games proved a natural fit. With 160,000 young people involved across 430 towns and 10,000 volunteers, it gave Cairn authentic access to communities nationwide and a platform closely aligned with its stated purpose.

Noonan, himself a former Community Games participant, spoke warmly about the role the organisation plays in giving young people confidence, connection and essential life skills.

The sponsorship has produced strong results for both sides. Cairn’s awareness has risen dramatically over the past three years, while the partnership has also helped add 13,000 more young people and 5,000 more girls into Community Games participation.

Internally, the impact has also been strong, with around 250 of Cairn’s 600 employees volunteering through the programme.

Noonan said one of the most important aspects of the relationship had been recognising that sponsorship was not just about placing a logo on a jersey, but about genuinely investing in the property and helping leave it stronger than before.

That has included support on practical organisational needs such as digital systems and infrastructure, alongside brand-building activity.

Looking ahead, Cairn expects the partnership to focus increasingly on the issue of loneliness among young people and the role that social infrastructure can play in tackling it.

 

Bound By Belief

 

 

Louise O’Mahony of Sky Ireland then outlined how the brand evolved its long-running sponsorship of the Women’s National Team into a broader partnership covering both the Women’s and Men’s National Teams.

The expanded sponsorship won awards for Best Use of Measurement and Insight and Best Medium Size Sport Sponsorship.

Sky had sponsored the women’s side since 2021 under the Believe in Better platform, arriving at a moment when the team’s success, including qualification for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, was driving record attendances and viewership.

As Sky prepared to enter the highly competitive Irish mobile market in 2024, it reviewed whether adding the men’s team would give it the scale needed to compete with some of the biggest sponsorship investors in the country.

Research with agency Core showed that football remained Ireland’s most popular sport and that fandom around the men’s team remained stable even during a less successful period on the pitch.

From that work came a new insight-led platform, Bound by Belief, built around the idea that when Ireland plays, the whole country stands behind the team.

O’Mahony said the platform was designed to resonate with both fanbases and to reflect the special connection the players have with home, many of them returning from clubs abroad to represent Ireland.

The campaign launched around the UEFA Nations League fixture between Ireland and England at the Aviva Stadium and was strategically aligned with the launch of Sky Mobile in Ireland.

A strong television, out-of-home and social media campaign was supported by sponsorship of match coverage on RTÉ, in-stadium branding, fan activations, product integrations and customer reward experiences such as tickets, travel and training-ground access.

The commercial impact has been substantial. Sponsorship awareness has grown strongly, Sky Mobile exceeded its targets, and those aware of the sponsorship show notably higher levels of affinity and consideration for the brand.

O’Mahony said the key had been investment in measurement and in understanding the fan rather than simply the sport, allowing Sky to build a platform with long-term relevance regardless of short-term results.

 

Blooming

The morning concluded with Laura Douglas, Head of Bloom and Brand Partnerships at Bord Bia, offering an overview of sponsorship opportunities around the 20th anniversary of Bloom, which will take place over the June Bank Holiday weekend in the Phoenix Park.

She described Bloom as a five-day celebration of gardening, food and sustainable living that now attracts more than 100,000 visitors and provides sponsors with a rich environment for immersive storytelling, engagement and influence.

With strong repeat attendance, broad demographic reach, extensive media interest and a range of partnership options from show gardens to feature sponsorships, Douglas positioned Bloom as a platform that extends far beyond gardening and food to offer opportunities for brands across multiple categories.

Taken together, the four presentations offered a strong picture of modern sponsorship in Ireland: insight-led, purpose-driven, measurable and increasingly central to how brands build trust, relevance and commercial return.  It is a pleasure to be a small part of such a winning sector

 

Image Credit: Darragh Persse, The Brand Fans and ESA Ireland

 

Guinness, Sky Ireland, Community Games Ireland, the GAA, GPA, Electric Ireland mentioned in this story are full members of the Sport for Business community.

If you would like to join our membership see your organisation in our content, on our stages, and in the conversation happening every day around the commercial world of Irish Sport, email us today and let’s see what is possible.

 

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