FBD is Ireland’s largest homegrown insurer yet has recently been outmuscled by global competitors. FBD, faced with a business imperative of building on its loyal rural customer base due to its heritage, needed to recruit from growing urban areas where awareness and consideration of FBD remained stubbornly low. This was negatively impacting on the number of quotes being sought from FBD by consumers.
Yet research showed that FBD could take advantage of its heritage and emotionally engage consumers, despite the transactional nature of insurance transactions, by shifting focus from ‘what insurance does’ to how insurance ‘makes you feel’. Identifying sponsorship as the best way of bringing FBD’s commitment to supporting Irish communities to life, whilst recognising that Ireland’s Olympic athletes competing at an Olympic Games have a unique ability to engage the Irish public, FBD spotted the opportunity to bring this all together by sponsoring the Olympic Federation of Ireland’s “Team Ireland”.
FBD committed to “support” Team Ireland by developing a 360-degree leverage programme that had support for Ireland’s athletes at its core. The sponsorship resulted in FBD transforming the perception of its business in urban areas. The results were obvious; with volumes of quotations going up and achievement of the company’s highest ever ‘spontaneous awareness score’ in the Insurance category. The success of this sponsorship will ensure that sponsorship will continue to be a key tool in FBD’s marketing arsenal into the future.
