Although the overall costs of the commercial and marketing activities remain confidential, the scale of the investment is larger than any of the company’s partnerships in the past including the ones with Scottish Professional Football League and the Rugby Football League.
“We realised from the start what an opportunity this was for our business,” said Adrian Troy, head of marketing at AG Barr
A £4million of investment in equipment was made and included the purchase of 340 chillers, 245 vending machines, 300 water coolers units and 200 Strathmore field-of-play ice coolers. Moreover, the company added five trucks to their delivery fleet.65 staff were employed to work at all the venues and approximately four million bottles/cans were delivered to the Games venues.
The Scottish soft drink manufacturer is just one of the domestic companies supporting the Commonwealth Games.
“We are hugely proud of our strong roots in Scotland and our heritage, which date back more than 100 years in Glasgow,” said Troy.
“We have not found becoming the Games’ official supporter a complicated process. Since October 2012 when we announced it we have worked closely with the G2014 project team to ensure we had all the requirements in place to deliver a Games to remember,” he added.
As part of the preparations the company introduced three limited edition IRN-BRU cans, opened the IRN-BRU store in Glasgow’s Candleriggs area as well as launched ‘Born to Support’, ‘Do More’ and ‘Fizzing up for the Games’ campaigns.
Action on Sugar criticised the company’s involvement in the sponsorship of the Games.
“We believe that all sports sponsorship by unhealthy soft drink companies should be banned as it gives totally the wrong image,” said Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Action on Sugar.
However, AG Barr clarified that over half of all products being delivered to the Games are Strathmore Water.