There is no denying that Premier League teams have excelled in producing digital content. Two teams that have particularly stood out this season are Everton FC and Brighton and Hove Albion FC.
While these teams have achieved success across various digital channels, their fan engagement and sponsorship campaigns have truly shined on mobile platforms.
Everton has acknowledged the excessive noise in certain digital channels and has turned to their distraction-free mobile app to enhance their marketing strategy. In particular, the Club has utilized Rover to create interactive and visually appealing mobile content.
From match previews and predictor games to exclusive app promotions for their Blue Crimbo event and lockdown concert, the organization has made a commitment to engage with their supporters and foster a closer connection to the Club than ever before.
Everton FC – Man of the Match
One of Everton's most successful mobile campaigns was their "Man of the Match" activation. After each match, the Toffees' digital team sent a mobile experience that included a visually appealing, live, 4-image poll highlighting their top performers.
Fans were invited to vote for who they believed deserved to be awarded the "Man of the Match."
The experience showcased the team's branding and prominently featured their sponsor, eToro, on each screen. Everton took it a step further by linking the poll answers to their loyalty program, allowing fans to earn loyalty points for voting. After the voting, the team followed up with another mobile experience revealing the match winner. What made this activation truly innovative was that the winner was presented in a scratch-to-reveal screen, creating an interactive experience for fans to "scratch" and see who received the honor.
This campaign was a tremendous success for both their Club and its sponsor. In fact, over the course of the season, from mid September to June, the team received over 237,000 screens viewed and 47,000 buttons clicked with their Man of the Match mobile campaigns.
Speaking about this mobile activation, Matt Gamble, Everton FC’s Senior Digital Manager, spoke highly of the campaign’s success, the Judo Platform, and the Club’s ability to boost fan engagement this past season on mobile.
“Our mobile app has become a core platform for us to connect with our loyal supporters. With the help of Rover, we’ve been able to create a number of activations that have boosted fan engagement, enhanced our partnership opportunities, and more importantly, have enabled us to create content that has fans accessing regularly when there are matches and when there aren’t. One of our favourite activations is our Man of the Match campaign which has garnered thousands of engagements for our partners!”
Matt Gamble
Everton FC’s Sr. Digital Manager
So how does it work?
When a fan, who has the team’s app installed, opens a Judo mobile campaign shared on social media, it will open natively in the Club’s app. That said, should a supporter not yet have the Club’s app, fans will still be able to take part, as it will open on web. This not only increases engagement for each team and their sponsors, but also ensures that no fan is left out.
Brighton & Hove Albion took advantage of this capability, sharing their Man of the Match activation on their Twitter. By moving to mobile, the Club was able to enhance their previous Twitter-exclusive poll, which was the only way that supporters could participate in years prior.
Instead of being confined to strictly using a text poll, the team was able to design a more engaging experience that included highly visual graphics and a more aesthetically pleasing poll that featured an image of each nominated player.
Making it easy to launch for each match, the team was able to create a Judo template for this campaign that helped their Club easily update the player nominations in real-time and include an image of the winning player.
The Seagulls also promoted other mobile activations on their social channels. For instance, their Performance of the Month campaign, which was another interactive poll experience, was frequently posted to the Club’s Facebook Page. This inclusion on Facebook garnered additional fan engagement, while highlighting one of their major sponsors, in Porsche.
It’s clear that Premier League Clubs, and sports teams across the world, are continuing to prioritize fan engagement in a way that helps their organization reach their goal of enhancing the fan experience while increasing sponsorship revenue. In a world where social media and web have become noisy, teams have chosen to turn to their mobile app to create innovative and engaging mobile experiences, within the context of their owned platforms.
In our opinion, the Man of The Match award should go to a standout group from both clubs – their hard working digital teams.