The Irish Sponsorship Awards took place in Dublin last night and sport emerged a natural winner scooping 11 of the awards on offer.
Rugby walked away with three of the gongs, adding to the sense of momentum engendered by the progress on bidding to host the Rugby World Cup. Paralympics Ireland continued to show a halo effect from the success of the London 2012 Paralympics which just squeezed into the available time slot for submissions. Soccer won one, cycling two and the GAA one on an occasion which was a substantial improvement on last year’s first Awards and which now seems likely to have secured a place on the marketing and media calendar.
Sponsorship of the Year
The award went to Paralympics Ireland and Allianz for the overal impact of their relationship across multiple channels during the heady days of London 2012 when the Irish Paralympic team excelled in becoming the most successful group we have ever sent to a World games. Allianz made it possible for a wider audience to see the action live by supporting Setanta’s showing of free to air coverage from the Games. The team including Patrick Haslett and Damien O’Neill is pictured above receiving the award from Briege McAtee of the Irish Times.
Innovation in Sponsorship
It was likely this award would revolve around the increasing ability to reach out via digital means and so it proved with Huggity taking the first prize of the night for the GAA FanPic series that spanned the concluding stages of Eircom’s activation around the All Ireland Football Championships. Liberty Insurance’s sponsorship of the GAA Hurling and Camogie Championships was the other sports nominee and doubtless a close second for its undoubted social innovation.
Best use of PR in Sponsorship Activation
Another multi strand award in which sport was a player in three of the eight nominees and a winner again through O2’s sponsorship of the Irish Rugby team. Ulster Bank’s support of club rugby which we will cover again shortly as part of our Club series, together with the Aviva Schools Challenge were the two to come close.
Best Use of Social Media in Sponsorship Activation
Four of these eight nominess were from sport with Rugby emerging again as a winner, this time for the #BringontheGreen campaign through O2 and submitted by Radical. Eircom, Munster Rugby’s video work with Adidas and the RaboInsider as part of the PRO12 sponsorship were the others to come close.
Best Use of Experiential Marketing
Liberty Insurance collected here for the different ways in which they activated around this year’s Hurling and Camogie Championships. Buses, Barrage Balloons a stylised poster and a jumbo crossword in the Irish Times were among the many small elements that made up into a bigger winner for the brand that did very well in the first of a five year deal covering the men’s and women’s sports. Three’s Armchair Manager was the other from sport to be shortlisted.
Best Use of Radio in Sponsorship Activation
Athletics Ireland was to the fore in this category with Ray Darcy and Spar landing the award for activation around getting the audience active around 5K running. The activation also included having last night’s master of ceremonies Neil Delamere pull on running shorts. The Hector Battle of the Minors on 2FM with Electric Ireland was another nominee from sport.
Best Use of TV in Sponsorship Activation
This was a straight head to head between Heineken for it’s TV campaign around the Heineken Cup and The Hit sponsored by Domino’s Pizza but yet again sport held the upper hand and Karl Donnelly was the one climbing the steps to receive his award from Ger O’Neill of Amarach Research.
Best Grass Roots Sponsorship
This was one of the most competitive awards of the night and the FAI has two strong contenders in the shape of the eFlow Summer Soccer Schools and Aviva for the FAI Junior Cup. An Post, Centra and Ulster Bank were also in the hunt but in the end it was Aviva who emerged the winner for its activation among the smaller clubs across the country.
Best Sponsorship Team
An Post captured this award for its activations around the An Post Cycling series and the An Post Rás, beating off strong contenders in Line Up SME and the team around the Aviva FAI Junior Cup.
Best Sports Sponsorship
Given the dominance of sport throughout the evening this was always likely to be hard fought and so it proved. Paralympics Ireland came out on top, a fitting reward for their having risen from one commercial partner at Beijing 2008 to 16 for London 2012. Those disappointed on the night but to have delivered so much through the year included eFlow again for the activation among children and soccer, Boylesports and Punchestown who caused a stir by offering odds on the outcome of the event throughout yesterday; the An Post Rás, the Emerald Isle Classic between Notre Dame and Navy; O2 and Heineken in Rugby and Liberty Insurance for the GAA Championships.
Ulster Bank, Phantom 105.2, Fleishman Hilliard, the Hit and Dragons Den on RTE2 and EightyTwenty picked up other awards on a night that may still be going on at the Burlington as this is being written.
To pick one from many is always a challenge and as one of the eight strong judging team for this year I am aware of the work that went into scoring each of the categories. The one area to have missed out perhaps this year was the sporting campaigns that reached out specifically to youth and children, an ever more important element within CSR and Health and which is likely set to feature prominently again throughout 2014.
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