Aegon to launch tennis campaign

Life and pensions company Aegon is to launch a tennis-related marketing campaign to coincide with its first title sponsorship of the Queens Club tournament next month.

A press and online campaign will break this summer with the claim that this will be a “great summer for British tennis”.

In addition, the Queens Club’s 5,000 seats will be “Aegon blue” for the tournament.

Steve Clode, UK marketing director at Aegon, says this is first stage of a long-term strategy to build Aegon into a household name and to “get to the point where we own tennis”.

Aegon signed a five-year deal to be the Lawn Tennis Association’s lead partner last year. The firm replaced Stella Artois as sponsor of the Queens Club championship, which had been associated with the tournament for 30 years.

As part of the deal, Aegon is investing in grass roots tennis including parks and schools programmes as well as supporting elite junior players. It also holds naming rights on grass court events at Eastbourne and Edgbaston and sponsors the British Davis Cup team.

The sponsorship signalled a change in marketing strategy for Aegon, moving towards consumer marketing from business-to-business initiatives and marketing to intermediaries.

Aegon is currently restructuring its marketing department, announcing it was axing 11 positions and creating several new senior roles including a head of individual marketing and head of corporate marketing.