The price of free
PUBLICITY
Bank sponsors
PRO-CYCLING TEAM
publicity
The announcement of Rabobank's decision to sponsor a profes
sional cycling team headed up by former world champion Jan
Raas has definitely started publicity wheels turning. Yet, even
though the national sports media flocked to the press con
ference to hear the good news. there is more to the sponsorship
deal than getting the Rabobank logo on yellow jerseys.
'Of course,' Rabobank chair-
man Herman Wijffels (left) said
when announcing the sponsor
ship contract with Raas, 'having
your own cycling team is like
having a flagship. But we also
want to contribute to the devel-
opment of a new generation of
top cyclists who can compete at
international level. So we see a
specific role in promoting the
amateur sport at both regional
and local levels.' Raas had been
searching for a new sponsor for
some time when he decided to
approach Rabobank. 'Once 1'd
spoken to Wijffels and other
members of the board, things
actually happened very quickly,'
he says. 'This is unique in Hol-
of television hours devoted to
professional cycling is consider-
able,' says Gert Sluis, head of
marketing Communications.
'Front January to September this
year, there were over 300 hours.
The Tour of Flanders was
watched by no less than 1.2 mil-
lion Dutch people. And if you
look at sattelite channels broad-
casting worldwide, then our
potential exposure is very high.'
Raas is in the process of forming
his top team - he will act as di-
rector. The first big name to join
is Erik Breukink. 'We will try to
build a team which is as Dutch
as possible,' says Wijffels, 'be-
cause in the end there's nothing
so Dutch as cycling.'
land in the sense that banks
don't normally do this kind of
thing.' Rabobank has contract-
ed to sponsor the pro-team for
three years with an option on a
further two. 'This gives us time
to develop,' says Raas. The
bank is giving us the chance to
build up our team and our per
formance.' Bank sponsorship is
not totally new in cycling.
Credit Lyonnais has been asso-
ciated with the Tour de France
for many years. But it is new in
Holland and the bank, along
with De Lage Landen, which re-
cently announced it would join
in the sponsorship deal, excepts
publicity spin-offs. 'In the
Netherlands alone, the number
Getting your name in any of the
media without having to pay
enormous advertising costs can
seem an attractive proposition.
Editorial coverage has the ad-
vantage of being free and, more
importantly, is seen as more
credible. But is there such a
thing as a free lunch when it
comes to the media? We ask
head of external Communi
cations, Hans Ludo van Mierlo.
'I would say there are various
relationships you can have with
the press and I'd break those
down into passive and active,'
he explains. 'Some companies
opt for a passive approach.
They do not seek publicity. It's
a strategy that can work. The
only problem is that when the
press finds you, the coverage
tends to be negative because
trivial or odd things are usually
considered newsworthy.'
According to Van Mierlo, an
active but well thought out ap
proach to the media is the pre-
ferable option. 'As in all re
lationships, it's a question of
give and take. You have to start
by defining your purpose in
seeking publicity. Then you
have to work out which media
are most useful in achieving
that purpose. Once you have
done that, you can start build
ing relationships. I would ad-
vise selecting a small group of
reputable journalists and con-
centrating on them.'
He believes this is where the
give and take comes in. 'If we
look at our own situation, as
Rabobank, then you see we
have considerable areas of ex
pertise. Fm thinking here of, for
example, food and agribusiness.
This can prove useful for a
journalist in that he or she can
contact us for background in-
formation or our view on a par-
ticular event, be it on or off the
record. In return, we are able to
send our own messages to these
journalists who will probably
be more inclined to use them
because we are useful to them.
And our own messages are al-
ways positive. But you must
keep in mind that a journalist,
even if you've paid for a fancy
press trip to some exotic place,
will always try to demonstrate
his or her independence. So you
can never be sure what the end
result will be.' For this reason,
Van Mierlo advises caution
when dealing with the press.
'Always keep in mind the
following factors. First, don't
expect too much from "free"
publicity. Put together your
own strategie plan which
matches your purpose in seek
ing publicity and define the re
sources you have available to
achieve that. If you're looking
for editorial coverage, remem-
ber that the so-called "silly
season", when most people are
on holiday, is very often a good
NIETS VOOR NIETS?
Gratis publiciteit kan heel
interessant zijn, omdat redactio
nele aandacht vaak als meer ge
loofwaardig wordt beschouwd
dan advertenties. Maar bestaat
er zoiets als gratis publiciteit of
hangt er toch een prijskaartje a
aan? Hoofd Externe Communi-
catie, Hans Ludo van Mierlo,
geeft richtlijnen voor contacten
met de media.
time to try for it. There are two
reasons for this. One is that the
media is looking for stories and
the second is that newspapers
are now sent to holiday desti-
nations and people have time to
read them. The next is to be
very cautious in dealing with
journalists you don't know or
have only occasional contact
with. They don't need an on-
going relationship with you and
will easily go for sensation, even
misquoting you to get what the)^
think is a better story. My
advice would be to develop
friendly relationships with a few
quality journalists. You don't
need lots of friends in life, what
you do need is good ones.'