Citizens Financial Group's five-year marketing deal
with the Celtics, at a cost of $5M-6M over the length of the
agreement, was examined by Gregg Krupa of the BOSTON GLOBE.
While the price tag "left the competition shaking their
heads," a Fleet Financial Group exec, whose bank dropped out
of the bidding last year, said, "I think they were in a
different market position, and given their needs and the
dramatically improved performance of the team, it might well
have been worth $1 million per year to them, in retrospect."
But the exec added, "That's not to say that we made a wrong
decision. ... Remember, our name is on the building, the
scoreboard and a lot of other places." Krupa reported that
Citizens' deal likely cost as much as $6M due to team
President/coach Rick Pitino's involvement as a pitchman and
motivational speaker. Citizens did an analysis of the
advertising and marketing penetration for the various
elements of the deal, and Citizens Exec VP/Dir of Marketing
Hal Tovin said, "When you compare that to $1 million or $1.2
million or whatever it cost to get this deal done, you can
see why we think we did more than well." Tovin added that
its new surveys show that in the last eight months the
bank's customer awareness has tripled (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/25).
