Each week we will highlight one sponsor for the weekend’s sporting action and take a look at why they got involved and how they are making their relationship with sport work.
This week it’s VHI Healthcare, new sponsors this year of the Women’s Mini Marathon Through the streets of Dublin on Monday
We spoke to Barbara Coyle, Corporate Communications Manager for VHI Healthcare
What did you find appealing about the event?
This is truly a unique event which sees women of all ages and abilities coming together to achieve their fitness goals and raise money for their chosen charities.
Vhi Healthcare has a proven track record in promoting wellness and pro-active, healthy lifestyles. The health benefits, both physical and mental, associated with running are unparalleled.
We are delighted therefore to have the opportunity to promote this area and hope to encourage more people to dust off their runners and take the first step towards running as a hobby.
We look forward to working together with the Women’s Mini Marathon team to further develop this fantastic event while also supporting women across Ireland to achieve their running goals and maintain an active and healthy lifestyle.
What are your main goals for first year of sponsorship?
We were keen to establish ourselves as the new sponsor of the event and bring a number of elements which added value to the participants.
With this in mind, we created the Vhi Support team, consisting of international athlete and former Masterchef winner, David Gillick (nutrition support), fitness enthusiast and DJ Louise Heraghty (fitness support), Vhi’s Dr Ui May Tan (medical support), and one of Ireland’s most popular comedians, Maeve Higgins (moral support) who provided tips and programmes for participants over the course of the 16 weeks leading up to the 2015 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon.
In addition we introduced the Vhi WMM 2015 app which allowed users to access their training and nutrition programmes on the go, get all of the latest updates on the 2015 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon and also record their own training runs. This has been very well received and we look forward to building on its success in 2016.
What will you be doing to connect business objectives to runners and supporters on the day and after?
One of our core objectives is to promote wellness and pro-active, healthy lifestyles. We feel confident that participants in the 2015 Vhi Women’s Mini Marathon will have benefited from the introduction of the Vhi Support Team and the Vhi WMM 2015 app and we look forward to introducing further initiatives in the preparation for the 2016 event.
Most of the leading businesses involved in sport are already involved as active members of the Sport for Business Community. These include AIB, Liberty Insurance, PwC, Aer Lingus, RTÉ, Coca Cola and many more. If you would like to learn about what we can do together to help make your relationship between sport and business stronger contact us today and let’s talk.
