Japanese baseball players are all the rage in the major leagues this year. Kei Igawa and Daisuke Matzuzaka have joined established stars such as Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki as imports on America’s premier teams. Now, America is exporting some of its heritage to Japan’s baseball scene through a sponsorship announced today by a subsidiary of a major U.S. financial services firm.
Hartford Life Insurance, K.K., a Japanese subsidiary of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. is sponsoring the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League during the 2007 season. As part of the sponsorship, Hartford Life Insurance, K.K. is promoting its brand and building relationships with distributors and other business partners.
The sponsorship calls for the Marines to wear The Hartford’s iconic stag logo on the front of their game uniforms along with the team’s own crest. It is the first time that a team in Japan’s Pacific League has displayed a corporate logo on the front of a jersey.
In addition, Hartford Life Insurance, K.K.’s sales representatives will play host to its agents and distributors at games at the Chiba Marine Stadium outside of Tokyo. Marines manager Bobby Valentine, who previously managed the New York Mets in the U.S., will also appear and speak to distributors at a company hosted seminar in May.
“Baseball is extremely popular in Japan and Hartford Life Insurance, K.K.’s sponsorship of the Chiba Lotte Marines, one of the country’s most popular teams, will help continue to grow our brand there,” said Lizabeth Zlatkus, president of The Hartford’s international wealth management and group benefits division. “This sponsorship will complement our existing television and print advertising campaigns and help achieve the goal of increasing brand awareness.”
Approximately 40 million people watch the Marines’ nationally televised games each year and about 60 percent of those viewers are over 50 years old. That matches The Hartford’s target market for variable annuities, an individual retirement and savings investment product. The Hartford is the No. 1 provider of variable annuities in Japan based on assets under management of $29.7 billion as of Sept. 30, 2006.
In the U.S., expanding brand awareness through sponsorships of sporting events has grown in importance for The Hartford. A major corporate partner of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), The Hartford’s television advertisements appear regularly during college football and basketball games. The Hartford and the NCAA have also teamed up to create and promote the “Playbook for Life,” a program to help teach basic personal finance skills to college athletes and their fellow students.
The Hartford is also a prominent player in professional golf, sponsoring three players on the PGA TOUR and one golfer on the Duramed Futures Tour, the developmental tour of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Golfers J.J. Henry, Charles Howell III, Kenny Perry and Elizabeth Janangelo display The Hartford stag logo on their apparel, attend company functions, and participate in outings with distributors of The Hartford’s investment and insurance products.
In 2003, The Hartford became the founding sponsor of U.S. Paralympics, a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee that recruits and trains more than 500 elite athletes with physical disabilities. The athletes serve as role models for The Hartford’s customers who receive disability insurance benefits, and their achievements reinforces The Hartford’s focus on abilities, not disabilities when helping claimants return to active, working lives.
“Hartford Life Insurance, K.K.’s sponsorship of the Chiba Lotte Marines is a natural extension of our sports marketing programs in the U.S.,” Zlatkus said. “Baseball has played an important role in helping bring the U.S. and Japan together for decades, and our sponsorship will help Hartford Life Insurance, K.K. and its customers come closer together as well.”
Source: The Hartford
www.thehartford.com.
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