Website Profile: NatWest banking on cricketing success - September 2004  

In the latest sports website profile, S&T finds out from Andy Detheridge, head of e-marketing at NatWest, how the UK bank's long-standing association with cricket is being leveraged via new media, and in particular through its www.natwest.com/cricket URL.

International cricket fans enjoyed the NatWest Series during June and July 2004, a one-day triangular competition played at England's principle cricket grounds, this year between England, the West Indies and New Zealand. Although favourite England did not make the final, despite beating both New Zealand in May/June's npower Test Series and the West Indies on its tour to the latter earlier in 2004, both 3-0, NatWest remains bullish about its association with the sport. NatWest's relationship with the sport began at the start of the 1980s with its first One Day sponsorship and the bank enjoyed a subsequent involvement with County Cricket before turning its attentions to internationals. (See also this month's Databox for further cricket statistics).
This is the fourth year that NatWest has had an online presence surrounding its NatWest Series sponsorship says Detheridge. "What started out as a simple microsite with some news and scorecards, has built year-on-year to where it is now, a dedicated sponsor site." Detheridge says that NatWest's cricket website is not trying to compete with leading site Cricinfo, "but we do need a minimum amount of content to make it interesting for users."

Interactivity bowling youngsters over

What NatWest has attempted to do, continues Detheridge, is to make www.natwest.com/cricket as interactive as possible. This includes the inclusion of the NatWest Speed Challenge, a competition aimed at young people. The competition took place at venues around the UK between 18 March and 16 August 2004 with participants in six categories, (Under 12, Under 15 and Under 18, for both boys and girls). To take part in the competition, entrants had to bowl a legitimate delivery (as defined in the Laws of cricket 2000 code) of which the fastest speed was recorded. Accredited ECB coaches judged legitimate deliveries and what constituted a delivery, with all recorded speeds from legitimate deliveries entered onto a leader board on natwest.com/cricket. The winners were deemed to be the top four entrants with the fastest speed from each category, making 24 winners in total. The prizes are 24 pairs of tickets (one adult and one child) to the last match in the NatWest Challenge (a series of three one-day matches between England and India) at Lord's Cricket Ground in London on 5 September 2004. In addition, finalists also qualified for the NatWest Speed Stars Final to be held prior to the NatWest Challenge in the NatWest Interactive Zone.
"We have also introduced a simple batting game based around the NatWest Challenge," adds Detheridge, "where players chose which team they want to be. They can then chose to play in a range of venues from a Caribbean beach to an English park."
Other features of www.natwest.com/cricket include player interviews and diaries, interviews with the England coach Duncan Fletcher, news, stats and team information, as well as live scorecards during the matches. An e-newsletter allows NatWest to reach existing and new customers "in a non-threatening environment" according to Detheridge, whereas links between the NatWest site and local cricket clubs keeps NatWest's hand in at a grassroots level as well as internationally.

The sponsorship spin

In terms of leveraging its sponsorship of the NatWest Series and Challenge, Detheridge says NatWest's cricket website is being used to build support for the campaign. "What we have tried to do is tie certain products into cricket," he explains, "thereby creating more of an overall message association." The strategy seems to be working, with traffic figures doing well compared with previous years, thanks to NatWest cricket promotions in high street branches and at the actual games. "It's about linking the offline to the online," adds Detheridge.
While NatWest understandably does not want to reveal total traffic figures until the end of the 2004 NatWest Challenge, the site recorded over 1m registered hits in an 8-week timeframe during the 2003 events, over 7,000 unique users per day and achieved a 75% click through to parent site natwest.com.
Prior to the start of the NatWest Challenge on 1 September 2004, Detheridge says that changes were due to be made to the site. "It's important to have flexibility with a website like this," he says. "And when the campaign is over, we will think about how we can make changes and improvements for next year."
With different nations entering the fray during 2005, NatWest will have plenty of scope for new content. In between the two 2005 npower Test Series, England will play Bangladesh and Australia in the 10-match 2005 NatWest Series and this will be immediately followed by a further three one-day games against Australia in the 2005 NatWest Challenge. In advance of The 2005 NatWest Series, England will also play a warm-up game against Hampshire at Southampton's Rose Bowl, after which they will play Australia in the NatWest International Twenty20 match at the same venue. The latter game will be sponsored by NatWest as part of its celebrations of 25 years of involvement in cricket.
Although it is impossible to say what the next 25 years hold technologically, one thing is for sure, while NatWest remains involved in cricket, it is certain to continue to use new media as part of its sponsorship mix.

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