Dacia Ireland gets behind the wheel of ‘Breakfast Republic’

Car brand will sponsor the 2fm radio show for the next 12 months

2fm ‘Breakfast Republic’ presenters Jennifer Zamparelli, Bernard O’Shea and Keith Walsh (right) with Dacia Ireland marketing manager Liz O’Gorman (centre).
2fm ‘Breakfast Republic’ presenters Jennifer Zamparelli, Bernard O’Shea and Keith Walsh (right) with Dacia Ireland marketing manager Liz O’Gorman (centre).

Dacia Ireland has signed up to sponsor RTÉ 2fm's Breakfast Republic show for 12 months.

The car brand will feature in 10 sponsorship stings across a day in a deal brokered by media agency OMD. The deal also includes podcast and homepage sponsorship, as well as a car giveaway competition to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Dacia’s arrival in Ireland.

Previous sponsors of Breakfast Republic, which runs from 6am to 10am, were multivitamin product Berocca and more recently Virgin Media.

The show is presented by Bernard O'Shea, Jennifer Zamparelli and Keith Walsh and has 167,000 listeners, according to the latest figures from the Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey.

READ MORE

Dacia Ireland marketing manager Liz O’Gorman said the company felt the “unique” personality of the show reflected Dacia’s own brand personality.

With pressure on “spot” advertising, sponsorship deals have become more important for radio stations to boost their revenues.

Presenters see the sponsorship of their shows as "a badge of honour", Jill Downey, managing partner at the agency Livewire, told a recent conference organised by the cross-industry group Choose Radio.

“A lot of presenters feel a little bit naked without a sponsor,” Ms Downey said.

Laura Slattery

Laura Slattery

Laura Slattery is an Irish Times journalist writing about media, advertising and other business topics