This week Boots unveiled their new partnership with the FAI and the republic of Ireland Women’s National Team. It is part of a unique relationship across the FAI and the Football Associations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

We met with Boots Ireland Head of Marketing Gillian Hennessy to get the lowdown on what the new partnership was going to look like.

SfB: Welcome to the world of Sponsorhip, tell us a little about where this partnership came from.

GH: This is the first major partnership we have had in sport and it’s one that we are very excited about.

The growth of interest in and support for Women’s sport has been very noticable and as a group we wanted to look at whether that should be something we could become a part of.

In Ireland we have 87 stores from Donegal to Cork and Dublin to Galway. We are in communities up and down the country and the profile of our shoppers is predominantly female. It was a natural fit to partner with Women’s football in this year of a world cup and ahead of the European Championships being staged in England in 2021.

SfB: this is a three year deal so it will lead neatly up to those finals, is that what prompted the reach across all five countries?

GN: Boots is a big brand and once the decision was taken to run with this across britain we very much wanted to be a part of it.

The World Cup was huge this summer. The free to air coverage on the BBC and here via RTÉ and TG4 brought the skills of the game and the character of the players to a much wider audience.

We see our partnership now as neing important in helping to drive greater interest as the teams look to qualify for Euro 2021.

SfB: How will that look over the next couple of years?

GN: We are working up our specific plans and will have our first full activations visible ahead of the opening qualification game for the republic of ireland team against Montenegro next month.

We want to highlight the players and will be using in-store promotions and our shop windows to get the message across of just how good they are.

We also have a very strong Boots Advantage card audience and we will be promoting through that as well with news, offers and more.

SfB: Will you be playing strong on social media around the partnership?

GN: Yes, we have an audience and the FAI is good at speaking to their fan base as well.

It has been a pleasure working with Katie McCabe around the launch and the platers have a really good story to tell.

It won’t just be to women either. It will be important for us to reach out to men and to families to get the whole country behind what the team can achieve.

We will be using all our channels to help drive greater attendance at matches.

SfB: How will the partnership fit in with ypur overall marketing approach?

GN: Our broad theme is that everyone has a right to feel good. Sport is obviously a really good platform for that, both physically and mentally and we will be promoting that message using the team and their qualification journey.

We will be promoting socially and working closely with the FAI and the players. We will have a presence in the grounds at Tallaght Stadium and in match programmes. having the games televised live on RTÉ is obviously a winner and we are really looking forward to getting things underway.

SfB: Will you be levearging across the five different teams?

Each team will have it’s own unique approach but it is good to be able to tap into the marketing resources of Head Office and that will help us to activate better and to learn from each other.

It is a learning curve being involved in sport for the first time but so far it has been great.

If Boots can create a fraction of the buzz that Lidl have as partners of ladies Gaelic football, utilising the unique power of a strong retail presence, then the future is very bright for the irish team.

The Republic of Ireland get their Euro 2021 Qualifying Campaign under way on Tuesday, september 3rd at home to montenegro.  You can buy tickets for that game here.

Northern Ireland start their campaign on Friday night August 30th at home to Norway.

Read More: Boots Unveiled as New FAI Sponsor




Image credit: Billy Stickland