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.
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.
