Poland – On December 19th, the largest company of Central Eastern Europe and one of the world’s 150 largest companies, the Polish oil refining and petrol retailing giant PKN Orlen, organized a Christmas meeting for all the sportsmen and children engaged in sports that the company is sponsoring.
Nearly 400 attended the event in central Warsaw, where the CEO Daniel Obajtek summarized the company’s achievements this year and those of the athletes it sponsors.
The group of sport stars sponsored by the company has grown significantly this year after PKN Orlen incorporated two other major players on the Polish energy and fuel market, Grupa Lotos and PGNiG.
The CEO stressed that the company’s entrance into foreign markets has been made easier by the company’s logo having received a lot of exposure at the world’s largest motorsport event, namely F1, and in the thrilling Dakar Rally.
The company’s representatives have had a fruitful year on the motorsport circuit.
Kamil Wisniewski stood on the podium of the overall classification of the Dakar Rally for the first time in the team’s history, coming in on third place among quad riders. Meanwhile, Robert Kubica became the first Polish driver in history to stand on the podium of the legendary 24h Le Mans race while Bartosz Zmarzlik became the individual speedway world champion for the third time. Kajetan Kajetanowicz, who joined the ORLEN Team after the merger with LOTOS Group, won third place in the overall classification of the World Rally Championship in the WRC 2 category.
Some of Poland’s most popular online influencers from platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter were present at the Christmas meeting, asking the sport stars questions meant to uncover just how well the athletes know youth culture as well finding out which Christmas traditions they follow at home and how they perceive recent events in the world of sports.
Orlen is one of the first Polish state-owned giants to successfully use social media stars and influencers to generate content on their own accounts.
Abstrahuje star Robert Pasut and Ula Grotynska managed to get humorous answers on their questions from athletes such as ski jumping legend Adam Malysz, handball goalkeeper Slawimir and F1 veteran Robert Kubica, revealing that the cultural gap between the generations is quite significant after all and that there seems to be a uniform view that the eternal debate on whether Cristiano Ronaldo or Leo Messi should considered as the great of all time has been settled after the World Cup in Qatar in favour of the Argentine World Champion.
@orlen_team_ ON czy PB? #kubica #adammalysz #kajto #holubkowalik #szmal @przygonski
The stars not only interviewed the many sports stars present at the event but also got some answers from the CEO of PKN Orlen, Daniel Obajtek himself, who amongst other things gave answers about the sales of the “legendary hot dogs” at Orlen Stop Cafés. Although Mr Obajtek refused to reveal any details or trade secrets, the video nonetheless gathered an impressive 1.3 million views.
@orlen_team_ Jak to jest z tymi hot dogami? #orlen #obajtek #sponsoringsportowy
Orlen’s bold move clearly payed off, because
the short video style interviews posted on the Team Orlen TikTok account took the Polish internet by storm, generating a staggering 12.5 million views and overwhelmingly positive comments from Polish internet users in the days leading up to Christmas.
