Renaming a beloved football stadium

Raising the profile of a Norwegian star in the UK

No, not Erling Haaland. ABAX began as a start-up in Norway in 2007 – offering a SaaS solution for milage claim, tool tracking and equipment control. With their services, businesses can keep vehicle fleets optimised, increase productivity and optimise efficiency.

Growing quickly in their first decade, they opened an office in Peterborough and were looking to build their profile in the UK at large. While embedding themselves properly in the local Peterborough community.
Where better to start in the UK than football? It’s the nation’s game – and nowhere more so than in Peterborough. Peterborough United, or The Posh, are the pride of the city – often punching above their weight and creating star talent (Ivan Toney anyone?). The club was a perfect match for ABAX’s ambitions.

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“The success of the launch of the ABAX Stadium and Peterborough United partnership could not have happened without Athene. It is great to see ABAX getting coverage in the press as the company looks to grow in the UK.”

Sandra Lindberg, Marketing Manager, ABAX

Embracing a community through football

ABAX announced a five-year sponsorship deal with Peterborough United, bringing about the first name change in the club’s history. ABAX turned to Athene to ensure the sponsorship launched smoothly. Once that was done, we’d use the momentum to raise the company’s profile in the region and across trade publications.

As regular followers of Posh, and with season ticket holders in our ranks, we knew what this renaming meant to the community and the club. We worked closely with design partners, ABAX and Peterborough United to create new branding and signage for what would become the ABAX Stadium.

We organised a match day launch of the renaming to coincide with a game broadcast live on Sky Sports and helped create a new ABAX mascot – Alviss. In true Athene fashion we got our hands dirty, with our Director Ryan, donning the Alviss costume for the night. He basked in the love of the Posh fans and endured some taunts from the rowdy away supporters.

A successful launch and bags of coverage

Outside of having the great and good of Sky’s pundit line-up saying the ABAX Stadium name throughout the evening – the match day launch was well received by club and fans alike.

From the momentum of the launch, we switched our attention to media coverage. ABAX made this easy with an offering that put them at the forefront of digital transformation in an industry seeking to innovate.

We leveraged their strong offering, with timely PR angles – bagging over 25 pieces of positive coverage in a matter of months across key publications like Fleet News and Business Car Manager.

Work with an impact