Best Fan Engagement by a Club
American Express Shirt Buy Back – with Brighton & Hove Albion FC and Hope&GloryPR
As a long-term sponsor of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (BHAFC) and a backer of the local community, American Express sought a way to celebrate its 10 seasons of support for the Club, activating around the final game of the season in a way that would directly engage fans – including both existing and prospective Cardmembers – and cause an uplift in brand consideration.
The American Express Shirt Buy-Back put Brighton’s long-standing fans at the heart of the story, giving them the chance to get a new season BHAFC shirt for free in return for a shirt from the previous 10 seasons. Thanks to American Express, fans got a coveted Club asset for free, resulting in a positive boost for the brand on social and editorial media.
The story reached over 30 million people, generated 49 positive press articles and resulted in an 18% increase in brand consideration amongst non-Cardmembers following the campaign.
Aston Villa FC / Crest Consultation
Aston Villa are making strides on and off the pitch – we need a brand to match.
Redesigning a crest is one of the biggest challenges and steps a club can take, with such emotional attachment from fans it is vital to get it right and put fans at the heart of the decision making process. This was magnified being a time when both the FA and Premier League are introducing regulations on Heritage Assets.
The club went through an extensive consultation process, speaking with over 30k fans across 3 phases via both in-person focus groups and digital surveys. This culminated in a vote for fans to choose our new crest.
A record number of fans participated in the vote, with 92% being happy to change from the existing crest, with the chosen design achieving 77% of the vote, and achieving a 74% overall positive sentiment across social.
We have become the first club to successfully update our crest in the wake of the new heritage asset rules, with the FA praising our comprehensive and open approach. We are delighted to have achieved a crest with fans that everyone can be proud of.
Brighton & Hove Albion FC
Our challenge is to grow our brand and retain the same values that made the club such a central part of the city; it’s vibrancy, inclusivity and renowned sense of creativity. So we have developed our fan engagement on a multitude of fronts
– Matchday engagement
– Global engagement
– Digital engagement
– Social engagement
– Community engagement
These include creating our new Fan Advisory Board, basing our kit launch around the Albion Family, celebrating with global fanbase our world cup stars, enhancing our digital matchday experience, generating new experiences for junior fans online, creating new behind the scenes content, welcoming refugee and fan groups with special experiences and looking after our community in this time of increased cost of living.
Everton FC
Have you heard about the content feature that resonated so much with a football club’s supporters, it reunited childhood friends after 40 years apart?
That’s what happened when Everton Football Club teamed up with its technical partner, hummel, to deliver a new series to celebrate the uniqueness, loyalty, and story-telling abilities of its global fanbase.
‘My Everton’ is a series of first-hand, user-generated stories housed on the Club’s website, evertonfc.com, and shared on our various social media platforms, giving supporters an opportunity to describe the moments that made them fall in love with the Club – for the first time or all over again.
Through their submissions, Evertonians have won signed merchandise and money-can’t-buy prizes, including opportunities to watch players train at Goodison Park and the Club’s Finch Farm training ground.
This campaign demonstrates how through considered use of rights inventory and an understanding of the fanbase to give them a voice, Everton and hummel have created a compelling and impactful season-long campaign loved by supporters.
Lewes FC
Lewes FC is the first football club in the world to split its resources equally between male and female teams. Doing football differently and committing to gender equality has attracted engaged and supportive fans locally and worldwide. Lewes Women is one of top attended women’s clubs nationwide and Lewes Men is one of the top 10 most attended men’s team at that level nationally. The innovative and quirky match day experience has contributed to The Dripping Pan being voted Britain’s best football ground and have led to increasingly higher attendances (up 367% for Lewes Women 82% for Lewes Men over the past 5 years).
Not only does Lewes FC offer a creative and exciting match day experience, but it also enables fans to become owners of the club. Lewes FC is 100% fan-owned, with 2400+ owners in 40 countries, each of whom own a single share. There has been a doubling of owners since 2017, trebling of ownership revenue and 97% retention rate. Fan owners enjoy an array of exclusive perks, such as the Lewes FC Owners App where games are live streamed; games have been watched in up to 27 countries at any one time.
Pafos FC
The audience and fanbase of Pafos FC have grown significantly, but it was clear that further development requires deeper engagement with different social groups, especially with younger generation, that didn’t have a chance to become closer to the Club. For that reason, Club has announced the Season of the Family, starting from the summer 2022, to ensure that each social group will be reached by the Club:
• Season Tickets Promo
• Free tickets for local schools project
• Project “XMAS Presents” – 18 000 gifts for the kids
• Advanced “One Team – One Town” project – 350 framed jerseys
• “Pafos is Blue and White” project – 300 flags
• Upcoming: “Month of the Family” project – gifts for newly married couples and for newborns, project for senior generation and students
Pafos FC has achieved several historical targets
• Average attendance increased by 350%, reaching 4200 viewers
• 4 attendance records set in 1 season
• 7541 visitors record – 20% of the whole population of Paphos district
• Over 1 300 kids coming each game to the Stadium
• Club’s projects were widely broadcasted in national medias, making Pafos FC the biggest agenda of the year.
Plymouth Argyle FC / Stadimax
Evergreen is a subscription Fans Fund that provides supporters of Plymouth Argyle Football Club with a full range of fantastic club benefits, while supporting football operations at Home Park Evergreen works under the mantra that ‘members can be the difference’ in our future success The Evergreen Story began with a desire to offer our amazing fanbase a new way to support the club, as we take the next steps in the Argyle ambition to become a sustainable Championship football club The club wanted to create a unique membership scheme that will give supporters the flexibility to pledge their subscription fee to a chosen football department at Home Park Evergreen members can choose from a selection of subscription packages, including a Premium option, Standard, International Premium, International Digital and various youth options As an Evergreen member, supporters can choose from three options to direct your funds: First-Team Operations, Academy and Sports Science The scheme allows members to direct all of their funds to one department or to split their investment For example, members can choose 40% First-Team, 30% Academy, 30% Sports Science the choice is yours.
Southampton FC
In 2021, Southampton Football Club extended its partnership with front-of-shirt sponsor, Sportsbet.io; a partnership with a fan-first engagement approach.
Two key aims were identified: • To create entertaining fan engagement opportunities • To build trust in technology and bitcoin.
As a result, the two organisations embarked on ‘The Big Bitcoin Giveaway’: a ground-breaking, two-part campaign designed to give fans across the globe unique engagement opportunities centred around the theme of bitcoin and tech.
The first part of the campaign was ‘The Bitcoin Hunt’; a four-round competition giving Saints fans the chance to win a bitcoin from Sportsbet.io.
For the second part of this campaign, Sportsbet.io donated a further two bitcoins to a first-of-a-kind Crypto Fan Fund’. This would be used to fund a renovation project in Southampton, as was decided by fan vote. Thanks to technological innovation, fans across the globe were able to join the launch through VR.
Southampton Football Club is renowned for doing things differently and using its strong set of guiding principles to turn potential into excellence, both on and off the pitch.
Both activations saw huge successes, driving fan engagement and brand preference for Sportsbet.io and the campaign embodies The Southampton Way.
