New Zealand Bank ASB Announces It Will Sponsor All Blacks Through '17

The All Blacks have a new sponsor to "support them in Rugby World Cup year, through the sevens at the 2016 Rio Olympics and all of 2017" -- ASB Bank, according to NZME. ASB and New Zealand Rugby announced the new association on Thursday and ASB marked it with a "clever re-branding stunt that might have made a few people driving past ASB branches think their eyesight was failing." It was not. The bank hailed its sponsorship by "turning its familiar ASB brand into the words: 'ABs'" on Wednesday (NZME, 3/5). The NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW's Campbell Gibson reported the ASB brand "will not feature as a shirt sponsor." The bank "refused to disclose the financial details of the deal." David Walden, who has worked on the ASB brand (he created Goldstein), said that the bank has made a "clever move because the All Black bank sponsorship spot was vacant." Walden: "[The sponsorship] wouldn't be cheap but they're not a jersey sponsor -- that's the big bucks" (NATIONAL BUSINESS REVIEW, 3/5).