Starling Bank Links Up With Lionesses
UK-based digital bank Starling Bank has announced a new partnership with the England’s national women’s football team ahead of the UEFA Women’s EUR0 2022 tournament and launched a new campaign that celebrates women’s football, entitled ‘Our Time’.
According to a statement, the campaign aims to promote the women’s games in line Starling’s mission to level the playing field for women within banking and technology. It comes as UEFA expects the tournament to be the most popular women’s sporting event in European history.
Three current and former England players are fronting the campaign including Aston Villa midfielder Jill Scott, Manchester City star Lauren Hemp, and Arsenal Women legend Rachel Yankey. The campaign spans multiple outputs and activations and focuses on three core pillars of ‘Celebrating’, ‘Creating’ and ‘Championing’ the women’s game of today and tomorrow.
To celebrate the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022, Starling is giving up to 500 matchday experiences to the local community at St Mary’s Stadium in Southampton, where Starling has a base. The bank will also be supporting a series of roadshows and fan parties in host cities across the UK where people can watch matches together.
Also, to help build the pipeline of football talent, the bank will be offering 25 grants of £1,000 to grassroots clubs across the tournament UK Host Cities that have girls, boys and co-ed teams. The bank will partner with SportsAid to invest in the development of up-and-coming female players.
Starling’s integrated ad campaign takes off in July across out of home (OOH), online and print channels and will feature ambassadors Jill Scott and Lauren Hemp. The OOH campaign will be prominent in London and Manchester. A series of blogs and videos with Jill, Lauren and Rachel will explore their experiences of women’s football and where they hope progress will be made.
Jill Scott commented, “There’s so much anticipation surrounding the Women’s EURO 2022 tournament and even more momentum being made for the women’s sport. For women players like myself, it really is Our Time. Long may that continue so that the players of tomorrow have many more female footballers to aspire to.”
Starling is the official national banking partner of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 tournament, the biggest sponsorship ever for the bank. Founded in 2014 by Anne Boden, the only woman in the UK to start a bank, Starling campaigns to Make Money Equal and women make up 46% of its senior leadership positions.
Rachel Kerrone, Brand & Marketing Director at Starling Bank, added, “Every single partnership and sponsorship we do at Starling must serve a purpose and align with our value of doing the right thing. In this case, it’s championing brilliant women and uniting communities around the game. The brand awareness we’ll gain from the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 is exciting, but what we’re looking forward to most is playing our part in the development of women’s football in the UK.”
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