Standard Chartered Bank made a big play this year when it announced a four-year deal, effective July 2010, to be Liverpool FC’s main sponsor, marking the club’s largest ever commercial agreement. With the Standard Chartered name and logo now set to appear on the Liverpool shirt, the agreement will surely help step up the bank’s brand awareness, and link it to one of the world’s most popular sports.
The bank, which operates in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, has a history of aligning itself with sports. The Standard Chartered name has appeared on many a sports jersey or stadium banner, from rugby and football to golf and marathons. Lilian Yong Babani, regional head of corporate affairs for Standard Chartered MENA, says the decision to sponsor football came naturally with Liverpool, as the club is a global brand with a substantial fan base across the bank’s markets. “There is also a large following of the English Premier League in Africa and the Middle East,” she says.
“Liverpool has a deep heritage and a huge following with over 130 million fans; nearly 60 million in China alone, 6 million in India, and 5 million in Thailand,” says Babani. “Liverpool enjoyed over 87,000 hours of global TV coverage in 2008 and over 2.4 million people visit the Liverpool Web site per month, which has sponsor recognition throughout the site. So this sponsorship, along with many of our other sponsorships, provides Standard Chartered with an opportunity to accelerate visibility of our brand, and improve recognition across our core markets and the rest of the world.”
BANK ON LOCAL SUPPORT. While the Liverpool FC agreement provides an opportunity for Standard Chartered to maximize its brand exposure, Babani says the bank remains committed to engaging the communities in its key markets with other sporting events.
In the UAE, Standard Chartered lends its name to high profile sports events including the Dubai Marathon (the world’s richest marathon) and the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. The Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, an Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) initiative, began in 2005, and drew big golf names like Paul Casey and Martin Kaymer. Standard Chartered committed to a five-year platinum sponsorship of the quickly world-renowned championship, and worked closely with the ADTA to activate the sponsorship by bringing golf-themed activities to the city in the run-up to the event.
“For the past two years, the Standard Chartered Golf Zone was hosted in one of the city’s malls for seven days before the championship,” says Babani. “Golf professionals manning the Golf Zone offered free mini-lessons to the public, encouraging them to ‘take a swing’ at indoor golfing nets, and the pros on hand provided tips and advice on how to improve golfing practice. Each swing was video-recorded on a Nokia mobile handset and then emailed to participants.”
At a more grassroots level, the bank also holds the Standard Chartered School Golf Clinics program in the run-up to the event; the program offers 50 students from five schools in Abu Dhabi the opportunity to study with a local golf professional at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which hosts the championship. “This program ends by giving ten of the best students the chance of a lifetime, a junior golf clinic hosted by one of the international pros during the championship,” says Babani.
RICH RUNNING. As for the world’s richest marathon, it carries a prize of $1 million, and saw the participation of world record holder Haile Gebrselassie in 2008. Standard Chartered has been the title sponsor of the Dubai Marathon since 2003, a sponsorship which Babani says reflects the bank’s commitment to corporate responsibility and engagement with the community, as the marathon also raises funds for blindness. “’Seeing is Believing’ is the global corporate responsibility initiative for Standard Chartered,” says Babani, who says that entrance fees for the special four kilometer Fun Run are donated to ‘Seeing is Believing,’ which has restored eyesight to two million people and aims to provide eye-care services to 20 million people by 2015.
“We believe in promoting the competitive spirit that comes through sport, which in turn means helping individuals achieve their goals in business and in life,” says Babani. “Research has shown that marathons prove a fantastic way for us to bond with the community, as well as help staff engage and become involved with our communities. As with all our sponsorships, we don’t believe in becoming a sponsor and then just placing branding in highly visible areas; we like to maximize exposure for the brand and encourage staff and customer engagement wherever possible. The marathons and other activities go beyond branding for us, by aiding us in developing our business and we use such vehicles to invest for future growth.”
Standard Chartered also lends its name to marathons in Nairobi, Singapore, Mumbai, and Hong Kong among others.