Royal Bank of Canada’s second PGA Tour title sponsorship moves it closer to its goal of blanket golf coverage throughout the year, especially on TV.
RBC has title sponsored the Canadian Open since 2008, but this week’s RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island, S.C., represents another bold move for the bank to get deeper into the golf space.
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RBC has title sponsored the Canadian Open since 2008.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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With the Heritage title sponsorship, RBC doubles its ad units on CBS and Golf Channel. A typical title sponsorship provides 32 to 36 ad units each on the broadcast network — CBS or NBC — and Golf Channel. Because title sponsors are required to use only half of their ad units during the tournament broadcast, the other half can be spread across the calendar in other golf programming.
“It really moves us closer to having a 365-day presence with golf fans,” said Andy Shibata, RBC’s brand marketing chief. “The people who watch golf are the people we want to target.”
RBC knows its way around the golf course. In addition to its two PGA Tour events, the bank is a patron sponsor — the highest level of sponsorship — for the PGA of America, and it has eight player endorsement deals, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk and Luke Donald among them.
Aside from a couple of sponsorship deals to support Canadian athletes in skiing, snowboarding and track and field, golf is far and away the bank’s greatest investment and broadest marketing platform. Even though RBC sold its retail banking business to PNC last summer, the wealth management and capital markets divisions remain under the RBC brand and there is no consideration for changing the name of the tournament to PNC, the bank said.
PGA Tour title sponsorships go for $6 million to $8 million a year, although industry sources say RBC is paying slightly less. The Heritage includes Boeing as a presenting local sponsor that defrays some of the cost of the title sponsorship. Player deals can range from the low to mid-six figures, depending on what’s asked of them.
RBC’s total golf spend is believed to be about $20 million a year. It works with Catalyst Sponsorship Consulting, an Oakville, Ontario, agency, for its strategy.
“Picking up the Heritage is just a great opportunity to gain even more exposure for our brand,” Shibata said. “We have a very strong brand definition in Canada, and the Canadian Open contributed greatly to that. But in the U.S., the Heritage will be more about brand awareness and getting our name out there more. Our clients speak the language of golf, which caters to that upscale audience.”
RBC recently extended its deal with the Canadian Open through 2017. Its deal for the Heritage runs five years.
While it’s rare for a brand to title sponsor multiple events, it’s not unprecedented. AT&T also has two title sponsorships, at the AT&T National and Pebble Beach. Along those same lines, FedEx has the umbrella sponsorship and title sponsorship of the St. Jude in Memphis, while Farmers and Zurich title sponsor different events, but they are both owned by Zurich Financial Services.
Shibata said RBC will do some heavy entertaining with its clients in wealth management and capital markets. About 750 guests are expected in Hilton Head throughout the week.
RBC also will build a new fan engagement area that will invite ticket holders to design their own golf bag. A winning design will be selected and Matt Kuchar, another RBC golfer, will use that bag design in the 2013 Heritage.
