Best Fan Engagement Programme
CherryBot – Greenwood Campbell
Greenwood Campbell, alongside AFC Bournemouth and Microsoft, created a Premier League first – CherryBot, a chatbot ‘personality’ which interacts with fans through emotion-recognition and intelligent conversation.
The chatbot which was hosted on Microsoft’s Azure platform to enable scalability on the day of the match has 3 key features:
A selfie competition that works with Microsoft’s emotion API and analyses the photos uploaded for the emotion on the faces of the fans. It is able to identify Anger, Contempt, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Neutral, Sadness and Surprise, with CherryBot responding to the fans accordingly. It can also recognise group shots and pick out the emotions of the individuals.
The ‘fans man of the match’ feature which allows users to vote on their man of the match from a pre-selected group of players. Votes are totalled and announced on the big screens at the stadium.
And finally, video highlights which is simply a way of letting fans watch a selection of match-highlights, in this case it was the last time AFC Bournemouth played Liverpool at home.
CherryBot has been an exciting project to create and we’re excited to see the ‘latest addition to the squad’ being so well received by AFC Bournemouth fans.
DJS Research Ltd & Leicester City: Improving the Match Day Experience for Disabled Fans
DJS Research Ltd (http://www.djsresearch.co.uk) is a family-owned full-service market research agency that has grown from the MD working alone in his garden shed, to a company with a turnover of £5M+ and 100+ staff. We work within the public, private and voluntary sectors, including research for sports clients, such as The Welsh Rugby Union, Liverpool FC, Sport England, England Cricket Board and Boccia England.
Our objectives for this project were to engage with disabled fans, stakeholders and experts to gain insight into the experiences of disabled fans to improve accessibility at King Power Stadium. We provided clear recommendations on how the match day experience could be improved. A long list of actions has been implemented by LCFC and noticed by fans:
“Since the research has taken place things have improved. The toilets are very accessible now because of their size and the grab rails. The stewards are also second to none with their caring attitude. And now having a parking space close to my entrance is incredible – it has absolutely turned things around for me. I’m now not stressed and anxious on match days. Well done Leicester City for listening and acting on our concerns.” (Supporter: Primary Progressive MS).
EFL Family Excellence Scheme
Over the last decade, the EFL Family Excellence scheme has helped to produce positive, impactful change and improvement in the family experiences offered by clubs. Celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2016/17, the scheme has not only offered improvement opportunities for clubs on a season-by-season basis, but has reflected, in the breadth of its feedback, societal and behavioural changes over this time. As an on-going qualitative assessment and consultation programme it has helped to change mindsets, drive change and support clubs in their efforts to attract and retain future generations of supporters.
With contrasting resources across clubs, the scheme seeks to highlight low or no cost examples of family engagement best practice. Its impact has been notable with several clubs gaining strong industry-wide reputations for offering true family value and a consistently high level of service and innovation. Thus in 2017 it has become a fundamental tool to drive clubs’ internal family engagement strategies, and consequently assist them in promoting the work they do to engage families and fans in their local community.
The uniquely authentic approach behind the scheme and its impact has received plaudits within the game both domestically and abroad, attracting interest and enquiries from clubs and associations from Brazil, USA, Australia, Estonia, Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Scotland.
Everton School Supporters’ Club
During the 2015/16 season Everton Football Club launched a School Supporters’ Club initiative which now, three seasons later, has over 100 schools, both locally and internationally, involved bringing thousands of junior Everton supporters together to celebrate the Club they all love.
The initiative was launched as a tool to engage with youngsters that are either already Evertonians or are yet to decide which team to support yet and offer them exclusive opportunities that other junior fans might not have access to and help expand the Everton Football Club fanbase.
Each season the initiative has grown and the network of 113 schools includes both primary and secondary schools across, Merseyside, England and the rest of the world. There are currently Everton School Supporters’ Clubs located in England, Ireland, Tanzania, New York, Dubai, Florida, Australia, Thailand, Spain, New Zealand and Singapore.
FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2017
We believe, this project is award winning for the following reasons:
1. We extended the duration (200 days) and location (68 unique locations) making fan engagement the priority of the tournament promotion
2. We successfully attracted diverse communities, activating both football and non-football fans (63,110 participants)
3. We provided fans an extraordinary platform to compete against the entire UAE by gamifying their skill versus friends, families and communities
4. We empowered youth to critically adopt in the tournament, developing physical and leadership skills
5. We created globally publicity and showcased local heroes of both genders, with CNN recognizing:
‘As the beautiful game continues to reach new fans across the Gulf, empowering more and more women along the way. What I will say, I think the winner here is Women’s Football”
6. We received FIFA distinction:
‘We recognize the efforts of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) in developing the most comprehensive and successful fan engagement programs in the history of the FIFA Club World Cup…FIFA intend to utilize some of the key learnings for future tournaments to more effectively engage fans on and offline.’
7. We drove 35% higher match attendance to early-round matches by engaging fans more effectively
Fulham Football Club Fan Engagement Programme
Fulham FC’s commitment to strengthening the bond between the Club and its supporters by signing the Memorandum of Understanding with the FST, is just one aspect of engagement with fans.
A summary of three core objectives establish this season are as follows:
1.Continue to grow the number of juniors and families attending matches at Craven Cottage
– Look to achieve a strong junior season ticket renewal rate as well as attract new fans.
– Build on a close relationship with our FFC Foundation and the local community to assist in communicating initiatives the Club has to offer
2.Commitment to delivering an outstanding match day experience for all fans
– Key emphasis placed on ensuring Craven Cottage delivers the warmest possible welcome and that all fans are informed ahead of their visit.
– Having an matchday entertainment schedule that offers something for everyone, involving supporters in our decision making.
3.Strengthen the Club’s engagement through a variety of initiatives in 2017
– creating memorable experience on match days and non-match days, as well as enhancing our dialogue with supporters (as seen with the MOU signing) and our local community.
– improving the Club’s online interaction to make all fans of Fulham feel closer to the Club.
Great Big Events – ICC Champions Corner Activation
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge, as set by the ICC, was to create a concourse-based activation that captured the hearts and minds of true cricket fans, who wish to be immersed in the culture of international cricket and the strategy behind the scenes.
THE SOLUTION
2017 ICC Champions Trophy – “ICC Champions Corner” Activation
Great Big Events sought to introduce a concept never seen at an International sporting event. We wanted to reward spectators attending the match, enhance their experience, and continue the show they’ve seen on the pitch by creating the “ICC Champions Corner” stage, a multi-platform, interactive hub on the concourse.
THE RESULT
ICC Champions Corner was a highly successful activation, providing fans with the ultimate cricket experience. Located on the concourse, this multi-platform interactive hub hosted Masterclasses with cricket legends, provided cricket coaching for kids and showed a live feed of the game in play with the commentary of the highly knowledgeable Matt Floyd.
UEFA and Seven League. Together #WePlayStrong
In May 2017 UEFA launched their new initiative called Together #WePlayStrong with the aim of making football the most played women’s sport across Europe within five years.
To support this initiative, and capitalise on the WEURO in Holland in July/August, UEFA turned to Seven League to develop a digital campaign that would promote the tournament, the teams and build excitement with fans.
To raise awareness and kick-start the movement from grassroots up, we responded with an innovative micro-influencer campaign that put real people at the heart of it. As a result, the idea for the #WePlayStrong Squad was born.
We carefully selected, recruited and empowered 45 super-fans, players, coaches, officials, mums and dads – real people connected with real women’s football across 16 European countries. We engaged them with a variety of collaborative challenges, giving them daily reasons to create authentic content that inspired people across Europe to support and take part in women’s football.
The Squad created and shared over 4K pieces of User Generated Content (UGC) that conveyed the passion for women’s football and embodied Together #WePlayStrong values.
Their content reached over 1.7M people and has inspired millions more girls to take up the game
