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RevolutionGlobal fans in the information age. Who are we? What motivates us? How do we create value?FAn

Insights by Repucom

2Evolution

©2015 Repucom

Germany play Argentina in the � nal of the FIFA World Cup at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana, the biggest game in what for the past century and more has been the biggest sport in the world. Football has grown ex-ponentially over that time – and from the fi rst FIFA World Cup in 1930 to Brazil 2014, which sees record audiences and record digital engagement.

July 2014

the WAy We WAtch, enJOy, enGAGe And interAct With SPOrt And everythinG thAt SurrOundS it iS chAnGinG BeFOre Our eyeS.

the revOLutiOn iS underWAy.

3Evolution

Insights by Repucom

Samsung White of Korea takes on China’s Star Horn Royal Club in the fi nal of the 2014 League of Leg-ends World Championship. 40,000 esports fans are in attendance in Seoul, watching the teams bat-tle it out in a stadium built for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Professional gaming has grown rapidly over the past decade, since technology enabled the sport to exist: 27 million unique viewers watch the 2014 fi nal, while the competition as a whole sees 288 mil-lion cumulative daily unique impressions, according to organiser Riot Games.

oCtoBER 2014

The last decade has seen seis-mic changes in technology, giv-ing fans the ability to interact di-rectly with players, teams, events and brands. No longer is sport, and fandom, just about watch-ing: There has been a move from a passive to interactive relationship, changing people’s expectations and demands. This new dynamic requires a deeper understanding of fan behaviours and attitudes.

Frequent viewers / enthusiasts*

Global esports audience (in millions)

*A frequent viewer/enthusiast defi ned as someone who watches esports at least once a month.Source: Newzoo Global Esports Audience Model; The Global Growth of Esports report – January 2015

113

2015

1452017

74

2013

FAn Revolution

Paul SmithFounder and CEO, Repucom

The importance of the fan, to rights-holders, sponsors and the entire world of sport can never be underestimated. Indeed, the relationship between fans and teams, and fans and brands, is at the core of Repucom’s work.

This ‘Fan Revolution’ report examines the global fan picture in 2015, detail-ing the current status of those relationships, shaped as they are by major ad-vances in technology, changing societal and media consumption habits and by the increasing sophistication of fan groups around the world. These are major changes, shifts which require a fresh approach in terms of understanding fan behaviour and attitudes.

In particular, it is clear that the relationships between fans and brands have become more nuanced and complex; expectations have changed, as fans become more focused on authentic experiences as participants in a fragment-ing media world – and fans are empowered as never before, gaining their own voice through social media.

Fan DNATM is Repucom’s response. A pioneering behavioural approach, it helps rights-holders and brands identify the type of fan most likely to react most positively to sponsorship; vital information as sponsorship is bought, sold and activated around the world.

2015

contents05 I Evolution

How did we get to here? Why are fans fans?

12 I REvolution What are the seven fan groups? Which activations work best?

22 I what nExt?

5Evolution

Insights by Repucom

A short history of how ‘fans’ have evolved

thE oRiginS of thE ‘fan’

The word ‘fan’ – a devotee, aficionado or supporter of a particular activity or person – is believed either to be a shortening of ‘fanatic’, a word with reli-gious etymology which came to be associated with baseball, or ‘the fancy’, an old English expression which referred to followers of boxing. As a professional global industry has grown up around sport the definition of the ‘fan’ has, inevi-tably, become more complex and nuanced, as has the desire to understand

precisely what makes fans tick. Rights-holders want more of them and brands want to be able to tap into them but to gain a true understanding of the modern-day ‘fan’, in order to maximise commercial returns, it is necessary to closely examine their attitudes and behaviour – and how they have evolved over time.

interactivityThe digital era has allowed interaction with players, teams and events in ways previously unimaginable, while the ability to watch anywhere, any time and on any device has put the fan firmly in control. It has heightened expectations and increased demand.

in the beginningFor centuries, people have been attracted to contests and entertainment, demonstrations of supreme skill and bravery – from joust-ing to the gladiatorial spectacles of the Coli-seum. Even in the earliest days, these events fused sport and entertainment. Some went to relax, some went to be stimulated, some went because they were interested in the spectacles or knew the stories behind the participants. Many of the underlying motives for attending and watching sports events have not changed.

Work and playAcross Europe, around the turn of the 20th Century, sports clubs were often created for employees by local businesses, providing a focal point for the community at weekends and in the evenings. That lineage is still visible, particu-larly in Germany at football clubs like Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Live& direct

2015next?

2 1

20thcentury

AmplificationThe advent of radio and televi-sion, and live sports broadcasts, connected those unable to make it to the stadium. As well as helping to build sport financially, through the sale of media rights, it widened fan bases and the popularity of teams and sports; the pay-tv era fol-lowed, with many sports no longer available in major markets through free-to-air broadcast channels.

6Evolution

©2015 Repucom

evolutionHow did we get to here? Why are fans fans? And how and why are fans different in different countries?

7Evolution

Insights by Repucom

a nEw MaP of thE fan woRlD

Technology is changing everything. What being a ‘fan’ means – the long-established pattern of behaviour we associate with fans – is being disrupted by a raft of new sport and entertainment formats and new ways of consuming them. Rights-holders, broadcasters and sponsors need a map for this new global fan landscape.

Fan DNA™ was conceived in conversations between Repucom and some of the world’s largest rights-holders and sponsors in 2014. Its purpose is to help brands acquiring sponsorship packages or rights-holders creating sales propositions make more targeted and profitable decisions in relation to spon-sorship strategy.

Repucom launched a meta-analysis of the many millions of fan interviews it has conducted across the world over the past decade, using this vast data mountain to develop a unique new piece of behavioural research across eight countries around the world. Over the summer of 2014, 8,000 new interviews were conducted across the UK, Germany, USA, China, Japan, Australia, Ma-laysia and Mexico – tracing the ‘fan journey’ of each respondent, from child-hood through to the development of the combination of attitudes and con-sumer behaviour which defines them as a fan now.

Despite the incredibly diverse group of markets selected, seven clearly differentiated groups of fans emerged – each one with their own distinctive

characteristics, behavioural tendencies and attitudes to sport and sponsors.

Each of these groups contains both men and wom-en of all ages and incomes. And the most ‘avid’ fans are also spread between a number of these groups. In fact, Repucom found that self-identified avidity was a rela-tively poor predictor of the strength of response to spon-sorship.

Repucom has now developed an algorithm which can predict the Fan DNA™ segment of any fan within minutes, and all our quantitative research (>500,000 interviews each year) now carries this technology – so our global understanding of this fan behaviour gets deeper with every passing week. Repucom clients are now using this to not only make better sponsorship investment deci-sions, but also to design much more effective communi-cation and activation initiatives. Crucially, they can now also track the performance of their investments in terms of the behaviour change of each segment, and embed this deep understanding of fans into their CRM systems to accelerate real value creation across their whole fan base.

the 7 behavioural segments (global average %)

Source: Repucom Fan DNATM Survey, August 2014. Total for eight countries (USA, UK, Germany, Mexico, Malaysia, China, Japan, Australia)

Sponsor brand recommendation

no 82% Yes 18%

BusY18%

cYnic

11%DisengAgeD

6%

25%

connectionFAn

gAmeexpeRt

13%

tRenDpositive

9%

ARmchAiRFAn

18%oF thAt18%:

sponsoR BRAnD ADvocAtes

in percent

1310

8

51

8

18

tRenD positives

gAme expeRts

connection FAns

ARmchAiR FAns

BusY

DisengAgeD cYnic

“ have you ever actually recommended a sponsor brand to a friend?”

8Evolution

©2015 Repucom

Where does social media fit in?

‘How much is a post worth?’ ‘What’s your engagement rate?’ ‘How many “likes” have I got?’ Rather than trying to approach fan engage-ment via social media this way, Repucom has developed Fan Stories as a means of identifying, categorising and ultimately monetising the many types of social media activities undertaken by sports teams.

Fan Stories are types of content, everything from a simple score update, to team announcements, event highlights, player statistics, ar-chive content and behind the scenes features – a major football club like Premier League champions Chelsea have over 60.

By auditing a club’s digital and social media output, across web, mo-bile, app, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (and whatever social media platform is next on the horizon), Repucom is able to determine a club’s digital assets – and identify which are the most effective in terms of fan engagement. Rather than focusing on the number of Facebook ‘likes’ and trying to examine what that means, sports properties can now com-pare their ‘score update’ posts against their ‘player Q and As’. That infor-mation allows them to approach partners and work out which Fan Sto-ries are best-matched to which sponsor, allowing them to build digital assets into sponsorships in a more sophisticated way – score updates ‘brought to you by Audi’, for example. Audi, in turn, have a launch-pad for activating based on their own sponsorship objectives, as opposed to a ‘tweet this’ and ‘post there’ approach.

It also gives teams the opportunity to optimise their major digital plat-forms – Chelsea, for example, receive more engagements per follower via Instagram. Game commentary and score updates play well on Twitter, while, by contrast, the content which works best on Instagram tends to be behind-the-scenes content, such as footage from training sessions.

Understanding where to place the right content, at the right times, allows teams to maximise engagements and, where possible, direct fans back to offi cial websites, where the advertising revenue is club-owned.

foCuS on fan StoRiES

% of variation of interest in different social media fan stories

Score updates

Event highlights

Team announcements

Goal of the month

Player statistics

Historical/past content

Event statistics

Player/Team of the month

Player/Team interviews

Player birthdays

May 2015 – respondents asked to rank top three Fan Stories by interest.

11

19

21

62

45

39

27

26

25

24

9Evolution

Insights by Repucom

gloBal MaRkEt PERSPECtivES

The global averages for each of the seven behavioural segments (shown on page 7) shows that Connection Fans – those whose primary motivation for engaging with sport is about sharing an experience with friends or family – are the largest group, followed by Armchair Fans and the Busy fan group.

But the Fan DNATM research revealed signifi cant market differences in the way sports fans have evolved and the behaviours displayed towards sponsor-

ship – from the high proportion of Connection Fans in the USA to the abundance of Armchair Fans in Japan, to Ger-many’s greater proportion of Game Experts; vital informa-tion for brands and rights-holders looking to target spe-cifi c pockets of a fan base. Repucom, drawing on its global expertise, examined the development of fans and fandom across several major markets.

JAPAna question of age: Baseball, with its male-dominated demographic, has traditionally been the dominant sport in Japan, but the announcement that the country would co-host the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the launch of the J-League in the 1990s altered the landscape signifi cantly. The J-League saw the emergence of more regional clubs; whereas baseball has traditionally been a big city sport, football has been able to reach more outlying areas. The ‘home town’ concept took a leap as Japanese sport de-centralised from Tokyo. The 2002 FIFA World Cup at-tracted a large female demographic, with more casual fans supporting the national team and ultimately attend-ing J-League matches. Japan’s ageing population (hence the high proportion of Armchair Fans), however, provides rights-holders with an ongoing challenge, with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics seen as a signifi cant moment in the coun-try’s continued sporting development – just as the 1964 edition ignited Japanese interest in Olympic sports.

%trend Positive 5

Game expert 13

connection Fan 13

Armchair Fan 30

Busy 22

disengaged 12

cynic 6

“ FAn dnAtm iS A PiOneerinG BehAviOurAL APPrOAch, thAt identiFieS the FAnS AcrOSS the WOrLd WhO WiLL reSPOnd StrOnGLy tO diFFerent SOrtS OF SPOnSOrShiP ActivAtiOn – the miSSinG LinK BetWeen WhAt FAnS SAy, And WhAt they ActuALLy dO”

Mike wragg, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Research, Repucom

10Evolution

©2015 Repucom

uSAfriends and family first: Technology has been the big-gest driver in the evolution of US sports fans over the past two decades – mobile phones and Wi-Fi access are as essential as food and water; stadiums and teams are working out how best to deploy technological solutions to aid the fan experience in-venue. The notion of com-munity, however, has been woven into the US sports fan’s mindset for far longer, borne out by the proportion of Connection Fans: in American football the longstand-ing general weekend structure of high school games on Fridays, college games on Saturdays and the National Football League (NFL) on Sundays, plays into that desire to come together with friends and family to watch sport. The attention spans of US sports fans are shrinking: they are engaged in other activities, like texting and surfing the internet, and have less patience for breaks in the action.

%trend Positive 10

Game expert 16

connection Fan 32

Armchair Fan 12

Busy 11

disengaged 5

cynic 15

looking for that national moment: Britons tend to rel-ish the social occasions delivered by sports events, from the traditional gathering in front of the television to watch the FA Cup final, to watching major competitions like the Premier League or Six Nations at home with family or in the pub – as borne out by the high proportion of Connection Fans compared to the other fan groups. In recent times, this congregation of people around their passion points has also doubtless been fuelled by the UK’s major event decade and British success on the international stage, no-tably during London 2012 – successful major events are often talked of as having ‘captured the nation’ and as a ‘national moment’, with other examples including Andy Murray’s 2013 Wimbledon victory, and England FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championship matches.

uK

%trend Positive 6

Game expert 16

connection Fan 26

Armchair Fan 17

Busy 15

disengaged 5

cynic 15

GermAnyfrom factory to football: Fan culture in Germany, much like the UK, has its roots in the country’s work-ing-classes. In football, local businesses and facto-ries developed their own clubs – Bayer 04 Leverkus-en is a prime example – which developed into city or neighbourhood hubs. The fan culture grew through attending games, local chants, regular meetings – ‘Stammtisch’ – and dressing in team jerseys, scarves and caps. New Game Experts are being created all the time. Being a fan of a club has tended to be passed on from generation to generation, whilst the popularity of football has risen among higher social classes thanks to greater media coverage and the rise of new technology. That fan culture has now spread to other major domestic sports like ice hock-ey, basketball, handball and even winter sports.

%trend Positive 5

Game expert 18

connection Fan 17

Armchair Fan 19

Busy 20

disengaged 6

cynic 15

11Evolution

Insights by Repucom

a market in development: China’s sports market is developing rapidly. Foot-ball is of less interest but basketball has a higher interest than in many markets, thanks largely to the National Basketball Association’s early broadcast moves in the country and the ‘Yao Ming-effect’. In China, sports such as badminton and ta-ble tennis have large appeal, while the concept of the superstar, particularly a home-grown star, plays well, as evidenced by the country’s huge Olympic programme – accelerated by the Beijing 2008 Olym-pics – and the huge recognition for the likes of now-retired tennis player Li Na.

chinA

%trend Positive 17

Game expert 4

connection Fan 36

Armchair Fan 9

Busy 25

disengaged 5

cynic 3

Cynical? us?: With no single dominant sports entity, the competitiveness of the Australian sports market means fan-ship is driven largely by geography – National Rugby League (NRL) is more popular in Sydney or Brisbane, whereas in Melbourne or Perth Australian Rules Football (AFL) is stronger. New sports and competitions like netball’s Trans-Tasman tournament are further complicating the landscape. As opposed to the transactional model in evidence across the United States and much of Europe, the concept of membership has taken hold in Australia – beyond buying a season-ticket, the major sports and clubs strongly encour-age fans to become members, with added benefits and the creation of a ‘badge of honour’ mentality. As the high Cynics score shows, Australian fans tend to like their sport to be authentic: diving and faking injuries is frowned upon; brands must demonstrate they are credible partners for a team.

AuStrALiA

%trend Positive 8

Game expert 13

connection Fan 22

Armchair Fan 16

Busy 17

disengaged 6

cynic 18

mALAySiACollective spirit: In culturally diverse Malaysia, sport plays a role as the common interest, and when brands play to this collective spirit, fans are responsive. Spon-sorship is not only accepted, it is welcomed, and fans are keen to associate their passions for a sport with brands they interact with on an everyday basis. Malay-sians are particularly happy to wear their passions on their sleeves; a high Trend Positive population who use sponsor brands to show off their association with their favourite teams. This high propensity for fans to interact with sponsors can be found across the majority of the major sports, but interestingly not as strongly in the most popular sport, badminton. While more than half the pop-ulation of Malaysia are interested in badminton, driven by a high participation rate, it is football and F1 fans that display the more brand favourable behaviour traits.

%trend Positive 9

Game expert 8

connection Fan 35

Armchair Fan 16

Busy 19

disengaged 7

cynic 6

12Revolution

©2015 Repucom

RevolutionWhat are the seven fan groups? Which activations work best for each one? And how do we make these insights work for us?

13Revolution

Insights by Repucom

% Fan dnAtm Segments

fan DnatM: nfl anD EuRoPEan footBall

The data below offers a comparison of fan groups between National Foot-ball League (NFL) fans in the United States and European football fans in Eu-rope. It shows a substantially higher proportion of NFL fans in the United States than European football fans across Europe.

For NFL fans in America, team affi liation is evidently an important part of their personal branding – the data breaking down fan segmentation amongst the top fi ve NFL teams bears this out; NFL team fan bases tend to include more Trend Positive fans than the top Premier League teams in England.

There is also a larger proportion of Armchair Fans in the NFL in the United States than of European football in Eu-rope, which is driven largely by the broadcast coverage of the two sports: NFL games are widely available on free-to-air networks across the United States, whilst European top-level football tends to have moved from free television to pay services. European football’s higher proportion of Cynics suggests these fans have been turned off by what they may perceive as over-commercialisation of the beautiful game.

Source: Repucom SDNA May 2015, Europe = average across UK, DE, IT, ES, FR

Trend Positive

Connection Fan

Game Expert

Armchair Fan

Busy

Disengaged

Cynic

nFl european Football

11 30 15 14 4 11 16

top 5 nFl teAms

% Segment Breakdown by Fan Base Size

Dallas Cowboys 18 17 18 12

Denver Broncos 17 15 29 10

New England Patriots 12 17 20 13

Pittsburgh Steelers 16 13 25 13

Green Bay Packers 13 14 24 12

Armchair FanTrend Positive Connection Fan Game Expert

top 5 pRemieR leAgue teAms

Manchester City 7 41 19 5

Manchester United 11 34 18 7

Arsenal 6 39 16 8

Chelsea 7 42 17 8

Liverpool 9 30 23 6

6 32 14 7 4 11 26

Source: Repucom Sponsorlink surveys in USA and UK

14Revolution

©2015 Repucom

With Trend Positives, their principal underlying reason for being a fan is that it identifies them as a member of a group they aspire to belong to – so activations that help them project that identity will work really well with this group.

Sport plays a very important part in the life of Trend Positives – they’re more likely to watch it and play it on a regular basis. They buy the merchandise of their favourite team and, where possible, attend live games. Whilst their favourite team is the priority, they are ‘completists’ and

will watch other teams too.

Trend Positives are the group most likely to be positive towards sponsorship – they recognise

and understand the link between sport and sponsors and that one cannot exist without the

other. They also tend to believe sport plays an important role in society and needs to be

supported by sponsorship. When we con-trol for factors like income and category

interest, Trend Positives are the group most likely to act as a result of being exposed to sponsorship.

This group are optimistic, passion-ate and interested in many areas out-

side sport. They consider themselves early-adopters and are image-conscious.

They think of themselves as trendsetters and are brand-loyal. They consume sport and in-

formation about it via any type of media, includ-ing social media.

tREnD PoSitivES

they love sport – and what it says about them

how to communicate with them?

» Ride their passion and make them visible

» Lifestyle and fashion

» New content to share

male 51%Female 49%

< 30 25%30 ‒ 49 49%50+ 26%

lower 22%middle 28%higher 45%

very 45%interested 39%little 16%

Who are they?

gender

Age groups

income group

interest in sport

Fan Storiestm

While Score Updates score highly across all Fan DNATM segments, there are several Fan Stories – content themes dis-tributed across multiple digital and social channels – which can be effective in target-ing the Trend Positive group. Player and team awards, plus contests such as ‘goal of the month’, allow Trend Positives to engage with their chosen sport or team and feel

PlayER awaRDS anD EvEnt highlightS

part of the event or match. Event highlights also over-index amongst Trend Positives – goals, key shots, great plays engage this group. Examples of Fan Stories which match this group include the NBA’s Insta-gram posts showcasing the best shots from a player GQ shoot, and the All England Club’s Wimbledon shot of the day and high-light clips during The Championships.

scoRe upDAtes 75% teAm Announcements 51% event highlights 36% plAYeR stAtistics 36%

15Revolution

Insights by Repucom

aCtivationS whiCh thiS fan gRouP lovE

JoSE MouRinho – hublot

In February 2014, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was announced as watch manufacturer Hublot’s latest brand ambassador. The company subsequently produced a range of ‘Special One’ watches.

BECauSE futBol – hyundai and the world Cup

Hyundai acquired the rights to be known as the official automotive partner of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Ahead of the tournament in Brazil, the brand launched its passion-based #BecauseFutbol campaign, highlighting the parallels between the loyalty of football fans and research which demonstrated consum-er loyalty to Hyundai. Advertising spots in-cluded a youngster’s obsession with trying to avoid the results of World Cup games.

aCtivia anD ShakiRa – world food Programme

Colombian pop star Shakira announced a global partnership with Dannon yoghurt brand Activia for a campaign called ‘Dare to Feel Good’ in March 2014. Shakira’s La La La song provided the campaign’s sound-track, with the brand and superstar com-bining to highlight the work of the World Food Programme’s school meals initiative at the start of the track’s video.CaRP laDiES –

hiroshima Carp

The Japanese baseball club made a con-certed effort to attract a female demograph-ic to the sport, through branded clothing, accessories and campaigns.

JoaChiM löw – nivea Men Deutschland

German coach Joachim Löw is a long-time promoter of Nivea’s skincare products, star-ring in a variety of campaigns – he has been a brand ambassador since 2008 and ex-tended his deal post-World Cup victory in November 2014.

hERMES tiCkEt tuESDay – Bundesliga

Bundesliga partner Hermes ran a contest giving away two tickets for every Bundesliga and 2.Bundesliga game each matchweek.

DaviD’S tRikot (JERSEy) ShoP – hypovereinsbank

Bank customers were given the opportunity to receive a free Bayern Munich jersey signed by defender David Alaba.

faCE thE finalS – afl finals Series 2014

Ahead of its showpiece games in 2014, the Australian Football League created the Face the Finals campaign, which saw fans’ faces ‘painted’ on Facebook in the colours of the favourite team and then inserted into photos with players.

gRooMing loungE – axE

To launch its new White Label line, AXE cre-ated a pop-up salon called the AXE Groom-ing Lounge at the College Football National Championship. The lounge provided free hair styling and neck massages to fans at-tending the game. While AXE has tradition-ally appealed to teen boys, the White Label line was more ‘grown-up’ and targeted ‘so-phisticated’ men.

global average: trend positive 9% game expert 13% connection Fan 25% Armchair fan 18% Busy 18% Disengaged 6% cynic 11%

trend Positives tend to respond strongly to activations in volving a celebrity and a fashionable cause, a celebrity and something wearable, and activations which are high ly creative and visual – things they can share, be seen singing or dancing along to, wear or display!

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©2015 Repucom

Game Experts’ principal underlying motivation for being a fan is a deep interest in and connection to the intrinsic detail of the game. Activations that enhance their appreciation of that detail therefore work really well for them. Conversely, sponsor activity seen to ‘get in the way’ of the game will receive a pretty negative reaction from this group.

It’s all about the sport. They want to know every de-tail, from tactics to additional statistics, and possess a detailed understanding of the strategy and the nuances

of their favourite sport. They are major consumers of sports news via newspapers and pay television.

They do not tend to participate in sport, although they are likely to have played at school.

They want data and facts, and regard sponsorship as a necessary ingredient for

sport; a sponsorship must be visibly help-ing their team or enhancing their experi-

ence of watching. Top players, in the view of Game Experts, are overpaid, while sponsors take up too many seats at games.

Game Experts have a high interest in sport, particularly football, but are not

so interested in fashion; they are more practical buyers.

gaME ExPERtS

they want facts, statistics and tactics


» Stick to the facts

» Statistics, statistics, statistics

» Show benefit to their team

male 65%gender

Age groups

Female 35%

income group

< 30 24%30 ‒ 49 41%50+ 35%

interest in sport



Who are they?

Fan Storiestm

Game Experts have a thirst for infor-mation, statistics and tactical analysis; eve-rything apart from the action is extraneous. The Fan Stories best deployed to attract this fan group therefore range from team announcements – Game Ex perts, under-standably, want to know who is playing, who has been selected and dropped, as soon as possible – and behind the scenes

a thiRSt foR infoRMation

content, including information from training camps and sessions, plus innovations like Manchester City’s Tunnel Cam, which films what happens before and after a game and offers exclusive half-time clips. Player inter-views relating to upcoming games also play well with a group keen to understand every nuance of the sport; awards like player of the month are less effective.


17Revolution

Insights by Repucom

PowER PlayER – yingli

As part of its premium partnership with Bay-ern Munich, solar energy company Yingli created the Power Player concept. The company calculated FC Bayern players’ kilowatt-hours during each home game, in-viting fans to guess the final total to be in with a chance of winning match tickets.

taCtiCS PREviEw – Mercedes-Benz

Ahead of German national team games, Mer-cedes-Benz, a sponsor of Die Mannschaft, previews the action from a tactical perspec-tive, with detailed analysis of the opposition and Germany’s likely approach.

uS oPEn – iBM

Golf fans can keep up with the US Open wherever they are with an application that provides a live leaderboard and hole insights explaining which clubs a player will select, the difficulty of a hole and real-time analysis of stats and shots on the course.

volkSwagEn-talk – werder Bremen

A series of short YouTube interviews with Werder Bremen players.

hERthahElDEn – hertha Berlin and Deutsche Bahn

Fans watching Hertha Berlin are given the chance to vote – and win prizes as a result – to nominate the team’s ‘hero’ of the game via an official club app; the player is then honoured at full-time. The app also includes statistics and other features, part of the con-certed club and sponsor effort to link the stadium experience with the possibilities of-fered by the digital world.

lEgEnDaRy SERiES – yokahama Baystars

This campaign was focused around former player Carlos Ponce who returned to Japan to visit the club.

StaRPlayER – heineken

Heineken’s StarPlayer app, to complement its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League, works in real-time, with fans en-couraged to display their knowledge of the sport and competing teams by trying to predict various elements of the game – when goals will be scored, or the outcome of corners or free-kicks. Players score points depending on how early and accu-rate their predictions are.

SlaMtRaCkER – iBM

IBM’s SlamTracker product provides a real-time statistics and data visualisation platform for fans, detailing points, sets and matches as they are played at Grand Slam tournaments around the world. The product has been developed over several years and now includes a social media tracker, charting conversations about players during matches.



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©2015 Repucom

Fan Storiestm

Aside from score updates, the Fan Sto-ries which resonate best with the Connection Fan group are team announcements and event highlights. But lifestyle content – behind the scenes with the players, or photos such as Chelsea FC’s Instagram post show-ing Didier Drogba sitting alongside Thierry Henry at an NBA game – and Fan Stories such as the National Football League’s Face-book player birthday messages tend to play well with this group. Archive content fares less well when targeting this group.

tEaM announCEMEntS

Connection Fans’ principal underlying motivation for being a fan is the opportunity it creates for doing things with their friendship group and/or family. Activations that celebrate, enhance, or amplify these connection oppor-tunities strike a strong chord with this group.

Connection Fans are likely to enjoy watching sport with friends and family. They tend to rate themselves as less avid fans compared to Trend Positives or Game Experts,

but don’t be deceived: they are the group that account for the largest proportion of all sponsorship response

and often have the highest proportion of their lives engaged with a sports property. Think of the mil-

lions of parents taking their child athletes to prac-tice week in, week out throughout the year. Or

the friends who have met in the sports bar every Saturday since they were teenagers.

They enjoy other social activities – eating out and healthy dining – and

always like to have the latest prod-ucts. They like to stand out from the crowd by buying brands that others

don’t. Their fashion sense is influ-enced strongly by people they admire.

They are the heaviest users of mobile, social media and magazines. They spend

the most amount of money on sports-related goods and are responsible for purchase deci-

sion-making.

When Connection Fans see a sports star or ce-lebrity using or wearing a brand, it acts as a personal

recommendation. If sponsors are seen to be enhancing the sport, Connection Fans are likely to recommend them.

ConnECtion fanS

coming together to enjoy sport


» Shareability

» Include their friends and family

» Player endorsements

Who are they?

male 54%gender

Age groups

Female 46%

income group

< 30 39%30 ‒ 49 47%50+ 15%

interest in sport


very 43%interested 41%

little 16%


19Revolution

Insights by Repucom

‘iMMoRtal fanS’ – Sport Clube Recife

Helping solve the family authorisation prob-lem afflicting organ donation rates in Brazil – 51,000 declared themselves donors, more than the club’s stadium capacity. The waiting list for heart and corneal transplants reduced to zero. The tagline: ‘Everything for Sport Clube Recife. Even after death’.

#SoSlaunDRy – all anD SnugglE little league world Series 2013

Sun Product Corporation brands “all” and “Snuggle” engaged children and their parents at the 2013 Little League World Series through a game of tossing socks into a wash-ing machine for the chance to win prizes like coupons, stickers or a “Snuggle” teddy bear.

Play 60 ChallEngE – nfl and the american heart association

The National Football League teamed up with the American Heart Association in 2007 to raise awareness of childhood obesity in the United States and inspire children to under-take the recommended 60 minutes of physi-cal exercise per day. Since then, teacher training guides and videos have been pro-duced and an online tracker developed to encourage parents and educators to encour-age ongoing physical activity, built around the six-week Play 60 Challenge.

fanBanDE – DfB

At this year’s DFB-Pokal final, between Borussia Dortmund and VfL Wolfsburg, Ger-man broadcaster Sport1 and Volkswagen teamed up to allow fans to upload photos of themselves watching the action. The most ‘gripping and emotional’ photos then ap-peared inside the Olympiastadion where the game was being played.

‘fanShakE’ – naB

NAB’s #fanshake campaign encouraged fans to make bets between each other, pledging to, for example, wear a rival Aus-tralian Football League (AFL) team’s shirt to work should their team lose. After capturing the pledge in action and uploading it to the website, NAB customers were given the chance to win ShopAFL vouchers.

CElEBRation of faMily – thank-you Mom – P&g and the olympics

In April 2012, 100 days before the London 2012 Games, Proctor & Gamble launched its global ‘Thank You Mom’ campaign around its top-level sponsorship of the International Olympic Committee. “P&G is in the business of helping moms, not just moms of Olympi-ans, all moms, all around the world,” said Marc Pritchard, P&G’s Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer as the plans were rolled out. “So we’re using our voice at the Olympic Games to thank moms everywhere.”

hyPED foR halftiME – Pepsi and the Super Bowl

Pepsi activated its sponsorship of the Super Bowl XLIX halftime show in February 2015 with a week of events under the ‘Hyped for Halftime’ banner in Phoenix, where the game was played, and beyond. The activation in-cluding a free, four-day music celebration took place in the city in the days before the game, the construction of a two-level Pepsi ‘Hype Zone’ fan experience venue and, on grameday a series of food and drink sampling events covering 12 downtown blocks.


connection Fans tend to respond strongly to activations which promote or celebrate family, friendship, community and the causes which are most relevant to their communities. think about what you can do for the grassroots, for mass participation, for their children – and celebrate how powerful these bonds can be in changing lives for the better.


20Revolution

©2015 Repucom

Armchair Fans’ principal underlying motivation for be-ing a fan is the ability to connect out to the wider world from the comfort and safety of their own living space. A much harder audience for sponsors to activate, the key will be thinking about what’s useful and relevant for this more isolated audience.

Armchair fans regard family as the most important as-pect of their lives. They prefer to spend a quiet evening at

home to going out and TV is their main form of enter-tainment.

They are interested in sport, especially the thrill and social currency of major events, but sport is

but one part of a wide entertainment land-scape for them. They are not die-hards.

Sponsorship is regarded generally in a positive manner, especially for the

big events – the X Factors, the Wim-bledons, the FA Cup Finals – which Armchair Fans watch from the com-fort of their own home.

aRMChaiR fanS

connecting to the world, from home

Fan Storiestm

Event highlights are an ideal Fan Story if a club wishes to target Armchair Fans, along with competitions like ‘goal of the month’. The key with this group is not to bombard them with statistics or detailed tactical information; team announcements, for example, are not likely to generate much engagement from this segment. Nei-ther is historical club or player information, or interviews with players.

Don’t BoMBaRD thEM


» Exploit big event resonance

» Sport and celebrity

Who are they?

male 45%gender

Age groups

Female 55%

income group

< 30 22%30 ‒ 49 36%50+ 41%

interest in sport



< 30

30 ‒ 49

50+



21Revolution

Insights by Repucom


» Social impact

» Ethics matter

Who are they?

male 48%gender

Age groups

Female 52%

income group

< 30 16%30 ‒ 49 33%50+ 51%

interest in sport



BuSy


» Discreetly involve family

» When? At the weekend

Who are they?

male 42%gender

Age groups

Female 58%

income group

< 30 30%30 ‒ 49 39%50+ 31%

interest in sport



Family, work – and that’s about it

The key to understanding Busy Fans is that they are relatively disen-gaged from sport due to other priori-ties in their busy lives, not because they don’t enjoy it. The challenge in engaging them is to find a way of fit-ting in with their full lives.

They tend to have an average ap-proach to anything, including sponsor-ship. They regard sponsorship as nei-ther good or bad; it’s just the way it is.

They show a moderate interest for social activities and sport, and have low usage of media and almost no social network activity.

CyniC

Sponsorship is a necessary evil

Cynics are sports fans – but their love of sport is highly coloured by what they perceive as over-commer-cialisation. Sport and those who play it are regarded as spoilt by money and business.

This group are disillusioned to-wards the money flowing into sport. They accept that sponsorship is a real-ity, though they will stay away from it.

This group, which tends to be the reflective middle class, enjoys spend-ing time with few close friends. They are very open to different cultures, but complete strangers to fashion and glamour.

DiSEngagED

Just leave me alone – i just don’t care

The Disengaged group really just don’t care about sport – beyond it being something else to watch on TV, a big event their friends might be drawn into. They follow what is hap-pening around them; but sport is just another TV show for them.

They are very pragmatic about money and sport. It’s not a matter of boycotting brands; they don’t care enough to do so.

They are a global, unengaged generation, who consider life too ex-citing to bother about big issues. They think brands matter, but they don’t want to be judged.


» Keep it simple

» Activity outside sport

Who are they?

male 42%gender

Age groups

Female 58%

income group

< 30 36%30 ‒ 49 38%50+ 26%

interest in sport



©2015 Repucom

22What next

When Repucom and some of our largest global clients started the Fan Revolution conversation in 2014, we were thinking mainly about the changing value of sports and entertainment properties for sponsors. It’s obvious that the fans sharing the experience with us in stadia, in cafes, in living rooms around the world look and behave differently compared to the crowd we were cheering with ten years before. And these days we’re much more likely to be thinking about fan populations that cut across diverse cultures, countries, time zones, income groups.

The Fan Revolution journey has taken us through billions of data points and right around the world. What we’ve found is that the key to unlocking greater value for sponsors – actual behaviour change amongst fans – is sim-ply understanding the few different reasons why fans are fans in the fi rst place and then engaging them in ways that resonate with that underlying motivation. And this pattern holds across fans of sports and entertainment worldwide.

Now that the revolution is underway – with growing numbers of rights-holders, sponsor brands and broadcasters around the world using technol-ogy like Fan DNATM and digital Fan Stories to select and design sponsorship activations and measure the performance of those investments. Others have spotted the opportunity to innovate with this approach to build a much broader and more consumer-centric approach to managing all aspects of their global fan CRM model.

What we’re looking at, how we’re looking at it – and how we can and do interact with it. All this is changing and diversifying faster and faster. But what are we looking for? Why are we interest-ed? The simple, global answers to these questions are the key to activating brilliantly and building your fan asset.

Join the FAn Revolution!

the next step

Begin YouR FAn Revolution With

Repucom At

[email protected]

23Evolution

Insights by Repucom

Copyright © 2015 Repucom. All rights reserved. Repucom and the Repucom logo are registered trademarks. Other product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks.

All content herein is copyrighted. Any reproduction must contain credit to Repucom.

All pictures on pages 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 (at the bottom), 16 (at the bottom), 17 (only the right picture), 18 (at the bottom), 19 (with the exception of the two pictures at the top), 20 (at the bottom) and 23 are provided by AFP. Front cover: fotolia, Csaba Peterdi; Page 5, at the top: shutterstock, marnikus; Page 8: shutterstock, LoloStock

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