Community is key for new Luton Town sponsors
As a Luton Town fan, the recent announcement that SsangYong Motor UK Ltd would be the Hatters’ new shirt sponsor for the next two seasons at least was a proud moment for the company’s finance director Ian Anderson.
The firm has been based in Luton for 13 years and is the licenced distributor of the SsangYong brand in the UK.
It has a network of 60 dealers, and Anderson believes the company’s striking logo’s presence on the front of the Hatters’ new Puma kits will help grow awareness of the Korean vehicles in this country.
“It’s fantastically exciting, both on a personal level as a long-time supporter, born and bred in Luton, and as the finance director of SsangYong, to see the brand out there on the shirt,” Anderson told lutontown.co.uk.
“We have a lot of Luton Town fans working here and when we told them on Friday, before the big announcement, I think they were all pretty excited at the prospects for next season.
“We are not a brand that everyone has heard of, but once they do hear about it and they see the cars and get in and drive them, typically they are very impressed with what they find.
“So it is a case of getting our name out there and now we’ve moved premises in Luton – we used to operate from a smaller warehouse, but now we’ve got a showroom downstairs, we’ve got a headquarters, office and warehouse – we are hoping to continue to grow and sell a few more vehicles locally.”
The local community is hugely important to SsangYong, not only in terms of keeping their Town-supporting workforce happy, but also in developing links between the company and all the teams who operate under the Hatters banner.
“Being involved at all levels is very important to us,” said Anderson, pictured above left with Paul Collins, the technical services manager from back of shirt sponsors NICEIC and ELECSA.
“We did say that all the way along that we want to be involved in the disabled team, the youth team, the ladies team.
“We don’t want to be one of those sponsors who just have their name on the shirts and you never see us at the club.
“We want to be involved because the club is successful at so many different levels, with the youth team last year winning the league and cup double, and getting to the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup, and the Luton Town disability team winning the FA People’s Cup.
“It’s important for us to be part of the community, and we’ll also be working a lot more with Love Luton this year. And of course, much of our workforce is Luton based, so it works on that level as well.”