Best Club Marketing Initiative – non Premier League 2018
Aston Villa FC – Part of the Pride
The ‘Part of the Pride’ campaign aims to put fans at the heart of the club and to unify everyone and everything. This overarching brand marketing campaign is used across all marketing, forms part of the club’s charitable arm Aston Villa Foundation and our equality diversity programme AllIn.
Developing our fan experience and building and rewarding loyalty has been a central priority for us, and so a campaign that is agnostic of results on the pitch but focuses on the emotional connection between fans themselves and with the Club gave us a platform to face the challenges met by any brand marketing team head on, while truly engaging our fans and driving commercial results.
From receiving over 284k mentions across social media and engaging over 116k fans with activations, to consistently breaking commercial records across Kit Launches (+260% up year-on-year) and Season tickets (+161% up year-on-year), #PartOfThePride is now well and truly a part of our Club’s brand and something all of us, fans and staff alike, are extremely proud of.
Bristol Rovers FC – season ticket renewal
Bristol Rovers produced a quirky and authentic promotional video for their 18/19 season ticket campaign. The club achieved record sales through this campaign.
Derby County FC – home shirt launch (AMP Global Media)
AMP Global Media is a new content marketing agency which is pioneering how brands and rights holders understand, engage and activate youth audiences in Sport, Gaming and Music.
AMP’s unique approach to audience insight, superior ideation, production quality and platform distribution, combine to deliver exceptional content and performance on a global scale.
Derby County Football Club works with AMP to increase global awareness of the club’s brand/image and drive impact and awareness of non-traditional content across the owned and earned media channels.
As part of this agreement, AMP is briefed to create new marketing initiatives and improve the club’s approach to content marketing, through both traditional and non-traditional campaigns.
For this award entry, AMP has submitted a campaign to launch the club’s home shirt for 2018/19, which was weaved into the announcement of new manager, Frank Lampard.
The brief was to maximise exposure for the club’s new kit and to secure additional revenue from sponsors/partners.
St Johnstone FC – #paintitblue campaign
This submission is a supporting an iniative to encourage young fans to start watching football at grounds on a Saturday afternoon. It is an activity using the First Team and our media team to reach out and attract a new set of young fans who will be the clubs future.
Sunderland FC – Big Seat Change event
Over 3,000 fans answered the call to come together and literally rebuild the club they love in more ways than one, as Sunderland AFC embarked on a Big Seat Change event.
The initiative was the first step in reconnecting the disengaged fanbase, who felt the tired appearance of their home ground, the Stadium of Light, reflected the club’s recent decline and hangover from back-to-back relegations.
Supporters travelled from as far as Bristol, Dover and France, with hundreds taking time off work to join staff at the Stadium of Light to replace the faded pink seats, that had become a standing joke among local rival fans.
To sum up, fan Paul Luke said it best: “It seems a small thing, but the pink seats are a visual reminder of our stagnation and lack of care. They’re embarrassing. Having red seats again will be a real boost to morale and a symbol of change.”
Supporting video: https://youtu.be/I3TIcFvHa-g
Wigan Athletic FC – Thousands of Journeys. One Destination
Wigan Athletic reignited a real connection between supporters and their club with their ‘Thousands of Journeys. One Destination.’ campaign.
Four supporters and star player Will Grigg were filmed on their respective journeys to matches at the DW Stadium in emotive videos which received positive responses from the club’s supporters and beyond.
Wigan Athletic’s ‘Together’ initiative embodies equality, diversity and respect within their organisation and the diverse nature of the supporters profiled highlights how welcome all supporters are at the DW Stadium.
What makes this project impressive is that there was no external involvement and the club’s in-house media team produced this during an incredibly busy campaign in which the club was thrust into the media spotlight during its Emirates FA Cup run.
The club headed into uncharted territory with this campaign and the results were impressive. The club sold more season cards in the opening month of sales than they had in the previous four seasons and the target of attracting over 1,000 new season card holders looks set to be beaten, with a high renewal rate meaning more season cards have been sold than the previous campaign.
