With the RBS Six Nations rugby tournament only a matter of months away, the final word on Rugby World Cup 2015 was had by Onside Sponsorship which conducted some research on the brand winners during Ireland’s ill-fated tournament.
According to Onside, 3 in 4 marketing professionals in Ireland named “official” sponsors – rather than “non-official”- tournament sponsors of RWC2015 as brands that they felt stood out, with Heineken and Land Rover shoulder to shoulder at the top of the research.
Among more than 36 different brands mentioned, Guinness was the one “non-official” Rugby World Cup brand that Irish marketing professionals rated at a similar level of effectiveness to Heineken and Land Rover for their activity around the event, followed by Aer Lingus.
Land Rover’s overall activation programme was judged by the Irish marketing community to have been most effective overall, while Guinness received top recognition in terms of stand-out social media and TV activation.
The other big winner according to research which was revealed at a breakfast briefing of Ireland’s top marketers was TV3. Indeed 78% of Irish marketers, who collectively play a hugely influential role in the media spend of many of Ireland’s top brands, rated TV3’s coverage of the tournament highly, while 1 in 2 expressed a significant improvement in their overall perception of TV3 as a result of their coverage of the event.
And the knock-on effect of the broadcasters’ strong performance was adjudged by marketers to have been passed onto coverage sponsors Land Rover, with 3 in 4 agreeing that the broadcast partnership was effective at promoting the Land Rover brand in Ireland.
Commenting on the results, John Trainor, CEO of Onside notes that “while the wider Land Rover investment in RWC 2015 tournament rights and broader activation were very effective, the decision to include the broadcast sponsorship rights played a major part in the brands’ overall success”.
Looking to next year, Trainor notes that: “As the Irish squad gear up for the 2016 RBS 6 Nations, Ian Madigan was identified by Irish marketers as the current Irish rugby team player that did most to enhance his marketability for 2016 through his performance at the World Cup, followed closely by Paul O’Connell and in turn Ian Henderson.”
