Best Club Marketing Initiative – Premier League 2018
Brighton & Hove Albion FC – Albion Together kit launch
Striking it right with supporters as well as the media, whilst enhancing our brand is a difficult formula to achieve.
For the club’s 2018/19 kit launch, Brighton & Hove Albion aimed to take an approach that celebrated the successes of the entire football club, but one that would resonate with supporters and the residents of the club’s home county of Sussex.
Chelsea FC – Tour of the Champions
To celebrate the club winning the 2016/17 Premier League, Chelsea FC, for the first time, embarked on a global trophy tour in October and November 2017.
The Champions Trophy Tour delivered a highly interactive, immersive and entertaining experience that presented Chelsea as an open, accessible and fun club to all supporters; both avid and casual, in Bangalore, Mumbai, Bangkok, Tokyo and New York.
The key objectives were:
– Engage existing Chelsea fans in key territories around the world.
– Acquire and convert claimed fans into digitally engaged fans.
– Contribute to local communities via the Chelsea Foundation.
By investing in experiential activation, CSR initiatives, bespoke content and by working with local PR agencies, the tour achieved substantial global media coverage, appearing in over 100 online and print publications, engaging millions of fans and growing the social following in key territories.
Liverpool FC – This Means More (Octagon)
Liverpool Football Club (LFC)’s ‘This Means More’ campaign concept was created by Octagon UK (the creative marketing agency specialising in sport and culture) and is the Club’s first truly integrated marketing theme, running across all marketing and communications touch points.
The campaign set out to define what LFC means to its fans and what the fans mean to LFC, by bringing to life the elevated meaning of this unique relationship.
The campaign was launched with an emotive film, created and produced in house with narration from Jurgen Klopp, that showcased the ethos of ‘This Means More’. The impact of this launch moment was significant, out-performing all previous club campaign messages to date in terms of sentiment and engagement.
This Mean More has been the centrepiece to LFC’s commercial activity since April, helping drive engagement with fans across the world too.
Manchester United FC – STAYUNITED
The new EU Data Protection law (GDPR) had the potential to be a game-changer for all businesses when it came into effect (on 25th May 2018). At Manchester United it was treated as an absolute priority. Six months before its ‘deadline’ Manchester United delivered a comprehensive campaign to drive fans to opt in.
STAYUNITED was a six month campaign, encompassing multiple channels, encouraging fans to engage and positively consent to receiving communications from the club. This was supported with content, benefits, incentives and competitions as part of a sustained and coherent campaign.
The outcome was a 113% increase in engaged marketable records on the MU CRM Database (NB MU have 51m records on our CRM db). STAYUNITED received lots of positive feedback and testimonials from inside and outside the industry
Not only did the campaign deliver, it was also frequently cited as best practice by the industry: e.g. DMA, Emarsys and DigitalSport.
Stoke City FC – City7s
Stoke City has long been recognised for its raucous support and capacity crowds. Ahead of the 2017-18 campaign, expansion work at the bet365 Stadium saw the completion of the stadium’s South East corner taking capacity to 30,079.
In order to maintain capacity crowds, the Club created an affordable and accessible ticketing initiative to enrich the lives of young people throughout Staffordshire.
Work focussed on local Primary School communities through a dedicated approach to engagement; employing high quality educational staff to build lasting relationships with teachers, pupils and their families.
The Club undertook a massive expansion of its existing City 7s scheme with the aim for ‘every 7 year old in Staffordshire’ to be offered free membership. This was a gesture to work with 215 Primary Schools to distribute 8,000 free replica shirts and 16,000 free Premier League match tickets.
In total, over 30,000 free and paid tickets were redeemed through the initiative and bet365 Stadium attendance records were broken on five occasions.
A record number of 2017-18 City 7s have signed up as Season Card holders for the upcoming campaign and despite relegation, the Club is committed to the scheme for future season.
Watford FC’s Community Sports and Education Trust – 25th Year Anniversary Celebration
Watford Football Club’s Community Sports and Education Trust enlisted the help of a number of partners and volunteers to celebrate their 25th Year Anniversary Celebration throughout the 2017/18 season.
Throughout the year Watford FC’s CSE Trust led a campaign to commemorate a history of Watford FC in the heart of the community whilst aiming to generate a new found interest and understanding of their community work. The campaign saw a plethora of activities and events targeted at a variety of audiences within their their community. These events included a gala dinner, interactive website, museum exhibition, charity match, dedicated Watford FC Premier League fixture and commemorative book entitled The Trust At 25: Improving Lives, The Story So Far…
To find out more about their anniversary visit www.watfordfccsetrust.com/anniversary or to keep up to date with Watford FC’s CSE Trust just search @WFCTrust on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
