AIB is Ireland’s leading bank yet legacy reputational issues associated with the property crash remain a concern. AIB is a long-time sponsor of Gaelic Games (think what cricket is to India) but despite being named ‘Sponsorship of the Decade’ by marketing professionals in October 2019, we were concerned by a drop in affinity, relevancy and growth scores.
Growth in sponsorship meant a more competitive landscape with other brands following in AIB’s footsteps. We responded by commissioning research to better understand our audience whilst going back to basics fuelling the passion for grassroots sport by championing it as well as leveraging our sponsorship of women’s camogie to infiltrate the wider cultural conversation on women’s sport, seeding hero content to celebrate the final featuring the first ever pitch-level footage of any game. The results of our research enabled us to evolve the insight underpinning our platform, The Toughest, shifting focus away from the sport itself to the strength Gaelic Games infuses through society.
Then Covid hit.
Games stopped but we kept going.
Reusing archive content enabled us to address the immediate sense of loss driven by the absence of play. We created a webisode series and documentary and a photobook celebrating the response of these communities to the pandemic.
Q1/2 metrics showed a significant 8% uplift in affinity scores, 7% increase in relevancy and 4% growth in think better. More recent activity has sustained momentum in terms of reach (100+ million on an island of 5 million) and sentiment (94% positive/neutral). We are hopeful that this will result in further growth in brand affinity.
