Munster fan Moriarty gets immediate result

It comes as no surprise that a marketing executive should have a positive outlook about the future but a year into its sponsorship of Celtic League rugby, RaboDirect’s Maeve Moriarty has proof her company’s association is already reaping dividends.

The sponsorship and programmes manager for RaboDirect, Moriarty came to the savings bank in the summer of 2011 to handle its then new deal with Celtic Rugby. With the ink still drying on the four-year contract to succeed Magners as title sponsor of the 12-team league and the new season less than two months ahead, she recalls a hectic first season, not least because the name RaboDirect Pro12 proved such a mouthful for the people expected to push the league’s new moniker.

It took quite a while to sit comfortably on the tongues of players and coaches required to talk about the competition at press conferences and media calls and also involved some concessions on the part of the sponsors to ensure their move into rugby would not fail to get off the ground.

“We’re a very committed sponsor and a lot of the work we did last year, strategically, was to get in behind, supporting the RaboDirect Pro12 name change,” Moriarty told the Irish Examiner.

“I think most of our marketing spend in the first seven months of last season, you probably wouldn’t have seen much of RaboDirect. We put everything we could into supporting the mark, the RaboDirect Pro12, because we knew if that didn’t bed in after six or seven months it was never going to.

“In sport people are directed as to what to say, like calling it the RBS 6 Nations, the Qantas Wallabies etc. The RaboDirect Pro12 is a mouthful so I talked to the [bank’s] GM at the time and I said, ‘why don’t we make it easier for everybody and start working on The Rabo?’

“He said ‘absolutely fine’, which was a huge surprise because things can be very structured when dealing with commercial rights or whatever. But we went and talked to the clubs and we said we know this can be difficult at times and it doesn’t always roll off the tongue so if it’s easier to call it The Rabo then off you go. They were surprised and really supportive. So that was worthwhile for us.”

Asked if sponsorship is delivering as a platform for RaboDirect, Moriarty is unequivocal and cites a comparison from her previous life in Australia.

“This is a good deal for everyone,” she said. “Yeah, it has way exceeded our expectations, not that those expectations were framed up necessarily in the first few months. We were happy to get the name in place first. We did some research in March this year with what we call rugby addicts, the hard-core rugby fans in the community, through Onside Sponsorship, and we were sitting at 93% unprompted awareness of the name of the competition after seven months. That’s a result I’ve never seen before in my years in sport.

“When Qantas took over the Wallabies’ sponsorship from Vodafone about 10 years ago it would have taken them maybe three or four years to get traction from that name change and even then it’s used in the press but it doesn’t roll off the tongue and it’s easily dropped.

“We were lucky in some respects that last season was a bit of a perfect storm but we adapted as we went along and now we’ve ended up in a competition everyone refers to as The Rabo, which we’re really happy about.”

It is possible those initial name difficulties actually helped hone the brand.

“You know what, I didn’t think about that but you’re right. Out of adversity or difficulty come some of the best solutions. We made a decision quickly, we moved on it and solved the situation.”

And, with the flagship game in the schedule set to play out at the Aviva Stadium tonight, all the signs so far this season are that year two of the sponsorship is set to move both the brand and the league on even further.

“One of the joys that I have is being able to say that the opening rounds of this season so far, every one of them has had the most spectacular of matches. So, normally, leading into it, [Leinster v Munster] would be the big game, and there’s no doubt it is, but, oh my God, the season so far has been phenomenal.

“You couldn’t have asked for a better lead-in to this match and being a proud Munster supporter I’ve got my hand on my heart but you just couldn’t pick it.”