Electric Ireland sponsors the GAA Higher Education and the Minor Hurling & Football Championships which provides the ideal platform for us to engage with a diverse demographic in terms of age and socio-economic status. The overarching goals of our decade long partnership are to grow the profile of the competitions and to strengthen Electric Ireland’s brand equity to drive advocacy and consideration.
This activation usually runs from January to October, but due to ongoing lockdowns during the height of COVID-19, the season didn’t begin until mid-October 2020. One week later, the games were paused until mid-December. Two weeks later, they postponed again and it would be another six months until we saw the games resume in June 2021.
This provided a marketing and communications challenge in how best to engage our audience in the absence of any games or events. Knowing we had a robust and dynamic campaign platform we highlighted the wonderful stories of resilience and community engagement with these young people through TV, radio, digital and social content. We also introduced the Electric Ireland Special Recognition Awards.
This innovative campaign significantly increased Electric Ireland’s Share of Voice despite the absence of any games taking place for the most part. Our 2020/21 results also show that we have successfully helped to elevate the championships as well as to build brand loyalty among customers.
