Sport Sponsorship Rights for a Fraction of the Cost 31st January, 2011

London Irish Rugby Club, the legendary rugby team, will this year expand the popular St. Patrick’s Day Party to five big events.  These include a total of five games with experiential activity known as The Big 5 – five games of world class rugby combined with live entertainment, creating a fan experience beyond ‘just another rugby game’.

Experiential Marketing: Creating the Experience

Slingshot Sponsorship came on board to help London Irish Rugby club take these events to the next level.  We developed an experiential sponsorship offering for brands which created value for both the brands involved as well as the fans.  Not only did this create an experience, it also helped London Irish create synergy of marketing activity, a new revenue stream, as well as some exciting experiences.  By providing flexibility and a low entry cost, London Irish enabled brands to leverage their best assets ensuring brand fit through their experiential activity.

Case Study: Global Action Plan

One partner involved is Global Action Plan, an award winning environmental charity based in London.  Global Action Plan has created the Climate Squad with their wide-reaching environmental initiative Pump It Up.  Pump It Up involves young volunteers pumping car tyres and explaining to car owners how keeping your car tyres pumped at the recommended levels can save money and the environment.  As the Madjeski stadium car park is a prime location for car tyres, this provided Global Action Plan a fantastic opportunity to get involved in sport sponsorship, whilst also accessing a prime audience to their initiative. 

In addition, the involvement of London Irish Rugby Club provides an incentive for Global Action Plan to recruit volunteers to both The Big 5 and introduce other volunteer opportunities with Global Action Plan in the future.  And best of all, London Irish fans get their tyres pumped and learn how to start saving the environment!

Through these additional events running alongside the most well attended London Irish games, The Big 5 creates an unrivalled opportunity for consumer brands to engage and associate with London Irish fans and the London Irish brand.  This can help current premier rugby league sponsors enhance their sponsorship rights as well as new brands to ‘get their feet wet’ with rugby sponsorship for a fraction of the cost of shirt sponsorship rights.