Best Club Marketing Initiative – non Premier League 2017

Aston Villa FC

Our 2017/18 season ticket campaign revolved around ‘#MyVillaMoments’ and included the combination of various live data sources to create a progressive, fully personalised and responsive website for every season ticket holder and match ticket purchaser. The PURL allowed them to re-live the defining moments of the 16/17 season – to truly see what they’d be missing without a season ticket in 17/18. Using rich media, behavioural data and Opta stats we created over 50,000 websites with 19 variable sources of data in each.

The campaign goal was to build a 1-to-1 conversation with our supporters, highlighting to them the exciting moments of their attendances at Villa Park in order to encourage season ticket renewal or purchase. Other aims included a target of early bird sales, a specific marketing ROI, a % renewal rate and a set revenue vs. number of season ticket holders.

The campaign went on to be the most successful season ticket marketing campaign in the past 10 years, breaking several records and all targets, despite the Club finishing in its lowest position for 44 years.

Brentford FC

Brentford FC has now stepped out of the shadows, after years languishing in League One and Two The Bees are now resident in the Sky Bet Championship with regular top 10 finishes across all three seasons.

With a small fanbase we decided to create occasions around matches that endeared themselves to the supporters, giving them another reason to attend a particular match where we couldn’t just rely on who we were playing.

We were acutely aware that fans wanted to recognise the 50 years since QPR attempted to take over the club. We chose to celebrate this 50th anniversary when we faced Rotherham, Saturday 25 February – not the anniversary of the takeover but when the fans secured the funding needed to save the club.

To do this we revived the “I’m Backing Brentford” slogan of the time and build a campaign supported by content that revisited the actual events 50 years to the day. The match not only exceeded the attendance and budget targets, it did so with only 21% occupancy in the away end relying more on the support of home fans.

Brighton & Hove Albion FC

Brighton & Hove Albion missed out on promotion to the Premier League on goal difference on the final day of the 2015/16 season, which was followed by play-off semi-final disappointment just weeks later The club’s supporters, staff and wider community, that had been the difference, not just that season but over the past 20 years, knew how to react The civic pride and local passion that ensured the survival of the club when it was made homeless in 1997, followed by the obstacles and great adversity that had been overcome in bringing the Albion home and securing planning for the American Express Community Stadium, is embodied by the club Having gone from playing home games on the road in Gillingham, then the temporary Withdean stadium until 2011, to then having 22,000 season ticket holders and an award winning stadium, the meteoric rise of the club could have easily reached its peak at the end of the 2015/16 season The club’s supporters, values and identity needed to be reignited and channelled to ensure the club could once again push for promotion the following season The supporters and wider community’s passion was called upon to rise again under the #Together

Huddersfield Town FC

The 2016/17 Season Card campaign was one of the most successful in the Huddersfield Town’s history.

Using the hashtag #WagnerRevolution, the campaign focused on the Club’s Head Coach David Wagner and the style of football that the team is producing around a gegenpressing system which has proved popular in Germany.

The pricing structure was purposefully made very simple, based on the values that Chairman Dean Hoyle built his business on, with single set prices for all stands at £179 for adults and seniors, £69 for U18s and £23 for U8s.

The campaign’s immediate promotion saw over 11,000 season cards sold in the first 4 days – a record for the Club.

Season card sales finally reached over 15,000, which in turn created a special atmosphere in the John Smith’s Stadium.

This led to some important home victories, many in the last minute of games, in a season which finished in Play Off success at Wembley this summer and the prize of Premier League football in Huddersfield.

St Johnstone FC

St Johnstone Football Club is a professional football club based in Perth, Scotland Although it is officially recorded as being formed in 1884, the club did not play its first game until February 1885 The club’s home since 1989 has been McDiarmid Park Perth has a population of 47,180 St Johnstone have 2000 season ticket holders and an average home attendance of 4,392 Our small but loyal fanbase have been repaid with a Scottish Cup win in 2014 and 5 European adventures from the last 6 seasons Away from the football side the management and operation of the commercial department is carried out by a small team who multi task over a number of departments and strive to ensure the club operates within its means financially Similar to a number of other football clubs, St Johnstone have a constant struggle to encourage the next generation of kids to get engaged with the football club and ultimately attend games The job is not complete and will continue to have a lot of “out of the box” thinking from all departments but the story seems to be encouraging Our family section continues to grow season on season.

Wolverhampton Wanderers FC

We took our kit launch literally this year and sent the new home kit into space. #WolvesKitLAUNCH was one of our most successful launch campaigns in terms of digital engagement and reach but more importantly sales. The campaign took advantage of our new digital platform and the priority shown to live content on social media. The results saw us 141% ahead of sales target after 1 month and 230% ahead on day 1 sales compared to the previous season.

The campaign also generated a significant amount of coverage across various content websites and national media including some excellent coverage in Match of the Day magazine – by their own admission they rarely give Championship clubs the level of coverage they did for Wolves on the back of the campaign

Wycombe Wanderers FC

Supporter Trust owned and run on a sustainable year on year model, Wycombe Wanderers FC created a Marketing Campaign around their new season Goalkeeper Kit Launch that spread worldwide in 24 hours and delivered measurable results for Sponsors and their Brand. The results surpassed the success of agency, governing body and club campaigns not only in Football, but in the wider sporting industry and general news channels crossing into new markets regions.

The campaign was conceived, designed and delivered using only available talent on hand and the clubs reputation for high quality digital and marketing output.