It has been a busy sporting week for the first Irish Rugby team camp of the season at Carton House. The commercial side has also been taking up plenty of attention and time, with Joe Schmidt leading the charm offensive around the two new partnerships which the IRFU has been active across over the past few days.
We carried a behind the scenes look at the launch of the new Ireland jersey on Monday where the fans were very mush to the fore. This was followed through with an exclusive interview we had with Chris Stephenson of Canterbury on Tuesday. In that he went through the reasons why getting Ireland back on his team was so important going into a Rugby World Cup year.
On Wednesday then the management team, together with Sean O’Brien were on the road back up to Dublin for a meet and greet session with all the staff at Three.
The brand has been close to Irish soccer over recent years and in taking over O2 during the summer has carried that ‘team Ireland’ association through to the oval ball game as well.
Plans on how the activation of the sponsorship across different audiences are still being determined with the first major set piece event coming with the Guinness Series of Autumn internationals in November.
It is always important though to get the advocates of a sponsorship within your own company on board early and that was the plan behind Wednesday’s Question and Answer session with the back room team, hosted by Des Cahill.
It’s been a busy time for Three with the renaming of the 3Arena, the launch of the Rugby sponsorship and the start of the qualification phase for Euro 2016. They have shown the way with smart activation in soccer, largely through fan engagement over that past three years and it looks likely that will continue across the now greatly expanded portfolio.
