In the run up to the All Ireland Football final we continue our look at how each of the three main sponsors have activated their relationship throughout the summer with one of the highlights of the sporting year.
The newest sponsor of this year’s football Championship was something of an anomaly.
GAAGo is a product aimed at exclusively international audiences sponsoring what is primarily a national event.
It is also at least partly an ‘in house’ concept which won through against other major brands that would have delivered fresh money into the association.
The thing about anomalies is they are worth exploring in greater depth to understand the why and learn what makes them potential game changers.
We caught up with GAA Media Rights Manager Noel Quinn who has been part of the planning for the GAAGo service over many months and years and who this year has seen it come to life in a partnership with RTÉ Digital.
First we looked at whether the sponsorship had been a success based on the criteria established at the outset of where both partners wanted to be approaching the end of year one.
“This was a brand that nobody was aware of prior to the start of this year’s Championship. Our intention was to change that and to get people talking positively around their own circles of influence both in Ireland and to the furthest reaches of where the Irish and the GAA community now extends.”
“Sponsoring the All Ireland gives immediate awareness, recognition and acceptance. That’s what it was intended to do for us and that’s what it delivered.”
“Word of mouth and recommendation was always going to be the primary driver of attracting people towards the service and the sponsorship gave us that to a level where our number of customers in year one is well ahead of where we hoped to be and we have delivered live streams to 120 countries around the world.”
You’re selling a service that allows people to see the Championship but your primary marketing is on the event they cannot easily see in the first place, how does that add up?
“Actually our real primary marketing is through the people who watch in Ireland and then have the conversation with family and friends that are far away around a subject that unites them in a way that is really powerful.”
“When you go overseas, for a year or a lifetime, you cling to what it is that is central to your identity. The GAA is an incredibly powerful element of that. Those overseas from Kerry or Donegal this week will feel their absence from home more now than at any other time.”
“The conversations they have on Skype, social media and telephone with friends and family back in Ireland will start and finish with Sunday’s game.”
“This week more of those conversations will feature GAAGo as a way of connecting.”
Is that Friends and Family market big enough to justify a seven figure investment in the sponsorship?
“The GAA has placed international growth front and centre stage of its development plan now and into the future.”
“We are an island nation where coverage and engagement is at an incredibly high level.”
“The potential to expand what we have, for the good of all units within the association, lies beyond our harbours and coastline.”
“20 per cent of GAA clubs are now located, playing and growing in countries around the world where they barely existed previously.”
“We supported the North American County Board Championships at the end of August, an event which saw 2,500 players and thousands more watching from the sidelines.”
“That same weekend we used Hill 16 at Croke Park as Ireland’s largest billboard for a banner promoting GAAGo at the opening game of the College Football season between Penn State and UCF.”
That broadcast on ESPN, and replays of the game winning score in the last second were broadcast to millions of homes across America and that gave us an extra, significant spike, in areas outside the traditional first or even second generation homes.”
When you have sparked that interest, what have you done to keep people engaged?
“As with any broadcast programme it’s primarily about the content.”
“We broadcast the content that is seen by those watching in Ireland, all the way through from pre-match banter to throw-in, replays and analysis.”
“You see on a beach in Sydney or the 74th floor of a hotel in Beijing what your friends are watching back in the front room.”
“That’s the case whether the broadcast is on RTÉ Sport or Sky Sports and the ‘whole package’ programming has proved very popular.”
“Beyond that we offer simple access with three clicks from first contact to watching a game, and excellent customer service.”
“When someone needs to get switched on it requires instant dealing with any issues they have. We treat every customer as if they were the boss. No exceptions. Everybody gets a five star service.”
“That’s important when it comes to spreading the word of mouth.”
GAAGo has taken the best practice of US sport as evidenced by Major League Baseball and the NFL. It’s ahead of the game played even by giants like the Premier League in England by pulling control of content into a genuine partnership with professional broadcasters.
There was an element of risk about turning down big money to fund the early stage internally but the payback over time from successfully expanding to the US, Australia, the UK and Europe could be immense.
That’s the game changing nature of the deal and that’s why it was a winning decision.
Look back on how Eircom have activated their All Ireland sponsorship and how SuperValu have tied in their year of football to the them of quality food and local service.
