Our Thursday interview this week is with Meadhbh Quinn, who is relatively new to the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Bord Gáis Energy but inherits a 15-year-old partnership with the GAA.
Our timing is good: Six teams left in this year’s All Ireland Hurling Championship will become four after this weekend, and the brand is to the fore as one of the sport’s three primary partners. But that’s not the only link, as we discover.
RH: How important is the relationship between Bórd Gáis Energy and the GAA? It’s one of those long-standing ones that has been there for what, now, 15 years?
MQ: This year’s campaign commemorates those 15 years, Rob. So, it’s an interesting opportunity to explore how long we’ve been involved with Hurling. We came on board in 2009, and it was originally a sponsor of the under-20s, which was formerly the under-21s.
In 2017, the sponsorship was extended to become a senior partner of the GAA All Ireland senior hurling championship. We also became the official energy partner of the Association. I suppose, like all good relationships, Rob, you know, this kind of partnership continues to evolve and grow.
It has to remain relevant, resonating, and adaptive. Looking back over the last 15 years, both sides have done an awful lot of really good work. It feels like a very symbiotic relationship.
It’s quite congruent from a brand perspective because often you have to ask yourself, as a brand owner, have we permission to play in the space?
Bord Gáis has always had permission to play in the whole hurling space and within that whole community area where we would see ourselves having a hugely important role.
There is also a sense of value alignment, and I think there’s a very strong alignment between our values and those of the GAA.
It’s not just about eyeballs. I think it’s much deeper than that. It’s about something that feels right from a brand perspective and that there is that kind of value alignment between both parties.
RH: I think it always comes through in the relationships that the GAA has that sometimes, if you’re on the outside, people can look at it and say, Oh, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But it does have a very genuine feel to it.
You’re in there alongside AIB, which has been there for 30 years, and Allianz, which has been there for 30 years as well. I mean, for a single organization to hold on to partners for that length of time, it must be doing something right.
So 15 years, and each year has to look a little bit fresh because channels and messages are always developing change.
How easy is it, do you think, to continually look at it and keep the bits you like? But change the bits that can improve?
MQ: It’s a great question, Rob, because it can, at times, be a very cluttered space.
You come into sponsorship because you want to tap into a really broad, engaged base of people who are very invested in the property itself.
And that’s hard in a hugely fragmented media landscape.
It’s much harder to access engaged people who want to hear your message.
There’s an awful lot of noise in the space, and that means we have to be smarter. This year, because it was a special year—it was 15 years—we decided to bring the campaign closer to what Bord Gáis does and what we provide.
This year’s campaign is built around the idea of Hurling Energy. It emanated from the idea that there’s a huge passion, energy, commitment, and excitement that is so integral to the game of hurling. And I suppose while you get that in other sports, there’s just something special and unique, even in the Irish context.
We very much wanted to tap into that and the whole fan base that is a critical part of it. So that’s hurling energy. It’s largely a series of vignettes of different sporting fans and players really celebrating the moment.
This time around, we decided to launch an offer based on the campaign. So, we launched a really strong 33 per cent off electricity offer throughout June. It was the first time we’ve ever gone in with an actual dedicated offer to underpin our sponsorship, and it’s doing really, really well for us, which is fantastic.
We also decided to go out a lot earlier. We’ve been very busy since the start of April. I think in lots of cases, traditionally, we would have started later, but I think the insights we were getting back from the research were because it’s cluttered, there’s merit in trying to get out earlier and to try and get some traction and momentum behind the campaign before everyone starts getting more involved with activations.
We went out in early April. As soon as the games started, our stings were out live and followed very quickly with our campaign, which was a sponsorship campaign launched in April. Then this offer launched in May, and we’ve got a very strong TV presence and a very strong social presence.
We brought in a really good copywriter to support us. We have a lot of commentary, and post-campaign analysis happens on a Monday after the games. So, we’ve upped the ante in terms of our social quotient. And then, obviously, we’ve got the likes of all of the usual pitch signage, and we’ve got our brand ambassadors working really closely with us.
So it feels like a very big and integrated campaign. And I do think getting out early has given us momentum. We’re certainly seeing it in terms of numbers. We haven’t done any post-campaign analysis at this stage, but it just feels like it has helped.
RH: The rhythm of the hurling season plays to that early start as well; it gets going much quicker. So there are fewer games and fewer teams involved, but the Munster Hurling Championship it just gathers together five teams any one of whom could end up as All Ireland champion. Whereas football tends to be a slower build and then perhaps a bigger finish.
It’s a good insight, which you’ve delivered well on. It is also interesting because oftentimes, campaign measurement comes through in brand scores, but actually putting out a measurable campaign in hard numbers will tell a lot. AIG was very good at that when they were sponsoring Dublin GAA.
I’m glad to see it, and I’m sure Diarmuid Murphy is glad to hear that it’s going well for you as well.
MQ: Yeah, and you know, in fairness, to your earlier question about the GAA and how they keep sponsors engaged, they’ve gone the course. They work really hard at ensuring that sponsors get access to teams, get access to the grounds, and just partner very much with us on the journey.
I don’t know if you always get that in all properties. I think that is something quite special about the GAA.
RH: My Mum is a Bord Gáis Energy customer who has gotten tickets for the theatre, for matches at Croke Park and really good experiences. How important is that ability to give experiences like a match ticket to your customers?
MQ: We get a huge engagement, Rob, to be honest. We have a really good customer loyalty program, and we have very good retention rates. And I think both of them go hand in hand, and the rewards program is, it has been established for a very long time. Customers are getting the opportunity to avail of money can’ buy by experiences, the likes of, say, the Legends Tour, which is very much built for rewards customers.
You get people meeting up with their heroes, and then every year, we do the Cupán Tae as hospitality, and we always have it on the All-Ireland Final day.
There are also extras, like a live show in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, where we bring in ambassadors to preview the game.
RH: Apart from that feel-good factor, do you use hard metrics to determine the impacts that the sponsorship has?
MQ: We look at it through a number of different lenses. We look at it very much from a brand health perspective and how much the sponsorship contributes to the overall brand health, be that awareness, engagement, or consideration.
So we would always do that as a standard. We would look at it regarding customer engagement and the whole piece around rewards and loyalty.
We would look at that and track it over time to see how much more traction we get. Then, we would consider extra initiatives for customers who might make it to the live game.
We would tend to do stuff below the line as well. So, do we look at sponsorship in as scientific a way as a piece of digital search? No, because I think there are some intangibles that are just very hard to necessarily place a number on, but intuitively they feel very much like part of the fabric of the partnership.
RH: How important are the ambassadors? So Joe Canning was an ambassador in the first year of your partnership when he was on the under-20s team. And he’s stayed there all the way through it, both through his playing career and even in his post-playing career as well, which is a really nice link into the depth of the relationship.
MQ: Both Eoin Cody and Gearóid Hegarty are having phenomenal championship seasons. So, in itself, that is gorgeous. And despite the fact I’m embarrassed to say I am a big Dubs fan, my allegiance was very divided regarding the Dublin Vs Kilkenny hurling match now the other weekend.
It massively helps when you’ve got two players who are having such a phenomenal championship season because the PR is almost intuitive.
It gets picked up very naturally. Joe is kind of the stalwart who’s been around for a long time. I suppose I didn’t really know any of these guys beyond the aspect of a fan until Jenny Kelly had a really lovely internal session with them.
We had a Jersey day about two weeks ago here in Bord Gáis. Again, it was to try and build engagement with the internal staff, and everyone had to wear a Jersey.
And she hosted a really good Q&A with the three lads. And it wasn’t just about hurling. A lot of it was about their lives, about what motivates them, and some of the challenges that they had rubbed up against over the years. And it was a really interesting perspective. They’re very down to earth, very accessible kind of people. And I suppose to their own sort of platforms and support, we benefit from that because there are our ambassadors. But they’re also great storytellers. I was so disappointed after the hour was up because I thought I could listen to these three guys till the cows came home.
So they’re a huge asset. They bring the whole thing to a whole new level.
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