RBC last month announced six-year title sponsorship renewals with the PGA Tour events in Ontario, Canada, and Hilton Head, S.C. The deals continue the company’s heavy investment in golf, a commitment that also includes endorsements with 15 professional golfers, including Jason Day, Jim Furyk and new LPGA sensation, Canadian Brooke Henderson. Mary DePaoli is the chief brand and communications officer for RBC, Canada’s largest bank by assets. She took time out during the recent RBC Canadian Open to discuss the bank’s golf marketing strategy, why the sport helps define the company’s brand, and the importance of player endorsements.
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The challenge is to connect in an authentic way. Young people are skeptical of brands. We can use iconic athletes in a unique way to connect to RBC through social media. It’s a unique way to deliver authentic content.”
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| Photo by: RBC |
On RBC’s golf sponsorship portfolio:
We have the right assets, and the renewals reflect that. It is now about the activation of those assets and taking it further. There is a lot we can do to further leverage the tournaments. We have to be creative in ways we can continue to surprise and delight our customers through our golf activation and how we can inspire latent golf fans. Golf’s demographics can’t be viewed as one group; it looks different from country to country. This may surprise you, but golf is now Canada’s No. 1 participatory sport. In the U.S., you have golf skewing older, but through grassroots efforts you will see younger players coming in. Internationally, you will start to see a young demographic starting to get involved.
On the impact of the player endorsements: Team RBC allows us to tap into the best athletes in the sport and it showcases our brand through their eyes. We typically use Team RBC not only for hospitality experiences, but it also allows us to tell their back stories across social media assets. This allow us to humanize golf. Brooke Henderson just came out [on tour], and we are just getting started in telling her story.
On the importance of the golf exposure: The ecosystem we have built with golf has been valuable. The Canadian Open, which is televised around the world, puts us on a world stage, and our support of the Heritage [tournament in South Carolina] gives us a large presence in the U.S. The Heritage allows us to connect with golf fans and clients and builds our brand in the U.S. The charitable aspect of golf is also important to us. … We need to ensure that communities can prosper and that charities can see RBC getting involved.
