Howard Moody is the Director of Group Communications
for the Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS recently signed Jack Nicklaus,
Luke Donald and Charles Howell III to endorsement contracts.
Could you generally talk about why golf was your choice?
Sometime
ago, in the beginning of the '90s, we got involved in Citizen's Bank,
which at that time was a small bank in Rhode Island. It's now expanded
as the second largest bank in New England. It recently acquired Mellon's
retail franchise down in Pennsylvania and we are now in a position
now where we have a really strong retail franchise at Citizen's. We
employ 15,000 people in the U.S.
We also have a large corporate banking business based out of New
York financial markets and corporate banking and we have an operation
called Greenwich Capital.
We decided that while we are the fifth largest bank in the world,
the second largest bank in Europe. In terms of the United States, we
didn't really have any strong recognition by people by an investor
based side or indeed amongst large corporations, they wouldn't necessarily
associate and think of RBS first.
So we thought well, how are we going about addressing that and there's
two ways we go about addressing it. We've been running some advertising
in some of the key journals, again trying to demonstrate our basic
DNA, if you like, and our DNA is about talking less and making it happen.
We then thought well we'd do some advertising, what other things
could we do and golf appeared as a real possibility for us. If you
were to ask 10 people in America what they associate with Scotland,
9 out of 10 would say golf. So it was something we had a long association
with the British Open. It was something that was strongly associated
with Scotland. Our name tells you where we originated from, the Royal
Bank of Scotland. So we decided that would be a good medium in further
extending the recognition of the Royal Bank of Scotland within the
U.S. and that is essentially why we decided on golf and essentially
why we decided then the next step was why Jack Nicklaus.
If you were to think of anyone who really characterizes our approach
to life, which is about under promising and over delivering, I think
Jack Nicklaus did that and that is something which we decided that
we would have an involvement with Jack.
We spoke to Jack and we started to develop the relationship we have
and then extended it into the concept of the Young Lads, both Luke
and Charles I think are absolutely superb young men and great ambassadors
of the game and I believe will be great ambassadors for the Royal Bank
of Scotland.
Outside of your relationship
with the R&A, do you have players
on other tours?
No, we are the official bank to the European PGA and as such we are
the official bank, as an example, at the Ryder Cup.
Do you have a desire or plan to look at other players?
Not necessarily, I think were very happy with what we got. We see
this as being a foundation and we see ourselves doing more, but let's
bed it down with Jack, Charles and Luke.
Why three players versus a golf tournament?
Again it's interesting. One of the dynamics (around golf) appears
to be some of the major tournaments haven't been able to attract sponsors
and I think there is a good reason for that. There not perceived to
be the value they may well have seemed to be in the past.
We also wanted to do something slightly different, we wanted to develop
a relationship with Jack, who could act as an ambassador and really
kind of share the same values that we have and be very much associated
with the kind of values we have. So it didn't really come down to option
of whether we would do a tournament or do players. I think Jack Nicklaus
was someone we felt we related to absolutely strongly and someone who
wanted to work with us and we wanted to work with him. So it actually
started from the fact of Jack's availability and his desire to work
with us and our desire to work with him.
If everything goes as you planned in your Business plan going
forward in the U.S., do you see the possibility of being involved
in a tournament?
In the future - who knows? We have a strong commitment to the United
States. We have an important business here. Right now we are embarking
on the three lions, one not so young and two young, potential lions
going forward and we will try that first and see how it works, but
we intend to develop what we are currently doing.
How do you envision the three players in developing and extending
the RBS brand in the United States?
I think what we intend to do is you will see over the coming months
further promotions where we use Jack, Charles and Luke in the terms
of some of our promotions. Around the majors for an example in the
U.S. and indeed the British Open, I think we play some of Jack's great
moments, which a lot of people still remember and so we will be doing
a lot of promotion like that and that is something we intend to do.
There are other things we are currently looking at. For example is
there a need for a golf debate in the U.S., could that be something
we could be involved in? Certainly Jack could be great ... in relation
to a golf debate, in terms of the major issues there are around golf.
So I think there will be many strands that we will employ, certainly
one of which right up front using Jack and the boys in relations to
the promotions we do.
Jack Nicklaus has many different companies. How do you envision
or do you envision being involved in the financial aspects of some
of the companies or projects?
What we're doing here is our relationship at the present moment.
On that particular front who knows how that might go, but that is not
the initial driver. If there are opportunities for us we have a reputation
for being involved in opportunities.
