Boston’s House of Blues faces Boston’s Fenway Park across Lansdowne Street. Citizens hopes buying naming rights to the concert venue and club will expose younger consumers to its brand.
Banks and credit unions have long marketed their institutions by attaching their names to arenas and performance venues, and January saw two banks further commit to this strategy.
Massachusetts largest indoor arena, TD Garden in Boston, will continue to have TD Bank as its title sponsor through at least 2045 after the bank extended its naming rights agreement last month. And concertgoers will soon visit Citizens House of Blues after Providence-based Citizens Bank became the title sponsor for the music venue in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, the fifth Boston music venue to carry the Citizens name.
Smaller banks also have opportunities to put their names on facilities, including Leader Bank, one of multiple banks that has held the naming rights for the Pavilion in Boston’s Seaport District.
While banks say they cannot directly tie growth to naming rights opportunities, they do see value in spreading recognition of their name.
“It’s something that brings attention to our brand in a positive way,” said Lisa Murray, Citizens’ Massachusetts market president.
A ‘Long-Term Approach’ to Brand Exposure
TD Bank has sponsored TD Garden in Boston since 2005, when the bank was known as TD Banknorth, and announced in January that it had extended the naming rights agreement through 2045. The arena, which replaced the old Boston Garden in 1995, had previously been called the Fleet Center. Shawmut Bank originally held the naming rights but was acquired by Fleet Bank before the facility opened.
The state’s second-largest indoor arena, the DCU Center in Worcester, has carried Digital Federal Credit Union’s brand since 2005. The $11.2 billion-asset credit union, New England’s largest, has the naming rights for the former Worcester Centrum until 2025.
Smaller institutions also find opportunities to buy naming rights. Leominster-based Fidelity Bank purchased the naming rights for the Worcester Ice Center in 2017. Banks also buy naming rights for sections of a facility, such as the Enterprise Bank Box Office at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell.
The outdoor amphitheater offering summertime performances next to Boston Harbor has seen multiple bank names attached to the site since it opened in 1994, including Hyde Park-based Blue Hills Bank and Rockland Trust, which held the naming rights for a couple of years after acquiring Blue Hills Bank.
Owned by California-based Live Nation, the venue has been known since April 2021 as the Leader Bank Pavilion, after the $3.8 billion-asset bank based in Arlington.
Leader Bank has been happy with the first two years of its seven-year agreement with Live Nation, said Jay Tuli, Leader Bank’s president.
Measuring the impact of the naming rights is difficult, Tuli said, but he added that awareness of the bank, which was founded in 2002, has increased.
“There’s 5,000 seats and there’s, like, 40 shows, so that’s 200,000 people that will go in and out where everything is ‘Leader Bank,’” Tuli said. “That brand exposure is definitely occurring.”
Bank customers also benefit from the partnership. For some shows, customers have opportunities to buy tickets before they go on sale to the public. And Leader Bank hosts client events at the site, Tuli said.
Still in the early stage of the partnership, Leader Bank is years away from considering whether to extend the naming rights, Tuli said. He added that the benefits of the naming rights would be measured over several years.
“You have to have like a long-term approach to this type of stuff,” Tuli said. “That’s how we view it, too.”
Different Venues, Different Demographics
Citizens launched a program called Citizens Live four years ago, attaching its name to four Boston music venues: the Citizens Bank Opera House, Paradise Rock Club presented by Citizens, Orpheum Theatre presented by Citizens and Brighton Music Hall presented by Citizens.
In partnership with Boston-based concert promoter Crossroads Presents, the bank became the title sponsor of a fifth venue, the Citizens House of Blues on Lansdowne Street.
With programming targeting people under age 40, the House of Blues gives Citizens brand exposure to a different demographic compared to the Citizens Bank Opera House.
While not able to make a direct correlation between the naming rights and customer growth, Murray said, the bank has data showing an increase in brand awareness with the younger demographic. The bank can see that thousands of existing customers have taken advantage of perks associated with the music venue sponsorships, including buying tickets before they go on sale to the public.
Diane McLaughlin
“Just by being affiliated with these venues, the Citizens brand really resonates with that demographic,” Murray said. “So, it’s doing what we wanted it to do, which is just have a positive impact on the Citizens brand.”
The music venue sponsorships also gave Citizens an opportunity to launch a workforce development program for Boston-area students from underserved communities. In partnership with Live Nation’s national nonprofit Music Forward Foundation, Citizens created a summer program giving paid internships to students who have just graduated from high school.
Students in the program, which will run again this summer, learn about working behind the scenes in the music industry. They put together all aspects of a show, including recruiting the musicians, negotiating contracts, marketing and putting on the show for the public.
Murray said the students came out of the program with confidence in their abilities, and some got jobs at the venues Citizens sponsors.
“Now we have the House of Blues, which obviously will resonate with that age individual,” Murray said.
