NIELSEN SPORTS FAN REVOLUTION - Sponsorship

NIELSEN SPORTS

FAN REVOLUTIONGLOBAL FANS IN THE INFORMATION AGE

Copyright © 2017 The Nielsen Company 32

Mike Wragg

EVP, Global Head of ResearchNielsen Sports

FAN REVOLUTIONThe 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 Nielsen Sports’ work.

This ‘Fan Revolution’ report examines the global fan picture detailing the current status of those relationships, shaped as they are by major advances in technology, changing societal and media consumption trends 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 fragmenting media world – and fans are empowered as never before, gaining their own voice through social media.

Fan DNATM is Nielsen Sports’ 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.

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 religious 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, inevitably, 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 in order to maximise commercial returns, it is necessary to closely examine their attitudes and behaviour – and how they have evolved over time.

THE ORIGINS

OF THE ‘FAN’

CONTENTS1 | EVOLUTION

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

2 | REVOLUTION What are the seven fan groups? Which activations work best?

3 | WHAT NEXT

08

12

26


THE REVOLUTION IS UNDERWAYTHE WAY WE WATCH, ENJOY, ENGAGE AND INTERACT WITH SPORT AND EVERYTHING THAT SURROUNDS IT IS CHANGING BEFORE OUR EYES.

July 2014

Germany play Argentina in the fi 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 exponentially over that time – and from the fi rst FIFA World Cup in 1930 to Brazil 2014, which sees record audiences and record digital engagement.

October 2014

Samsung White of Korea takes on China’s Star Horn Royal Club in the fi nal of the 2014 League of Legends World Championship. 40,000 esports fans are in attendance in Seoul, watching the teams battle 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 million cumulative daily unique impressions, according to organiser Riot Games.

The last decade has seen seismic changes in technology, giving fans the ability to interact directly with players, teams, events and brands. No longer is sport, and fandom, just about watching: 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.


1

French fans take in the action at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

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.

Nielsen Sports’ Fan DNA™, conceived in conversations between Nielsen Sports and some of the world’s largest rights-holders and sponsors and honed through dialogue with literally millions of fans over the past few years, is designed to help brands acquiring sponsorship packages or rights-holders creating sales propositions make more targeted and profitable decisions.

Through meta-analysis of the huge volume of fan interviews conducted across the world over the past decade, a vast data mountain has been used to develop a unique piece of behavioural research. We’ve also relied heavily on thousands of in depth “fan journey” interviews across the UK, Germany, USA, China, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Mexico – a full account of fans relationship with sports and the brands that support it from childhood through to the development of the combination of attitudes and consumer behaviour which define 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 women of all ages and incomes. And the most ‘avid’ fans are also spread between a number of these groups. In fact, we found that self-identified avidity was a relatively poor predictor of the strength of response to sponsorship.Nielsen Sports’ has developed and honed an algorithm which can predict the Fan DNA™ segment of any fan within a minute, and all our quantitative research (more than a million interviews each year) now carries this technology. Our global understanding of fan behaviour is getting deeper and deeper, helping sports teams, leagues, events and brands not only make better sponsorship investment decisions, but also to design much more effective communication and activation initiatives.

EVOLUTIONHOW DID WE GET TO HERE? WHY ARE FANS FANS?

1FAN INTERVIE WS CONDUCTED E ACH YE AR BY NIELSEN SPORTS

MILLION


THE 7 BEHAVIOURAL SEGMENTS

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

GLOBAL AVER AGE %

SPONSOR BRAND RECOMMENDATION

Source: Repucom Fan DNATM Survey, August 2014.

“ HAVE YOU E VER ACTUALLY RECOMMENDED A SPONSOR BR AND TO A FRIEND?”

Trend Positives

18%

Armchair Fans

8%

Cynic

1%

Busy

10%

Game Experts

8%

Connection Fans

51%

NO 82% YES 18%

Longer name in two lines

00%OF THAT 18%:

SPONSOR BR AND ADVOCATES

Disengaged

3%

9%

26%

TREND POSITIVE

CONNECTION FAN18%

ARMCHAIR FAN

18%BUSY

6%DISENGAGED

11%CYNIC

13%GAME E XPERT

‘How much is a post worth?’ ‘What’s your engagement rate?’ ‘How many “likes” have I got?’ Rather than trying to approach fan engagement via social media this way, Nielsen Sports 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, archive 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, mobile, app, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (and whatever social media platform is next on the horizon), Nielsen Sports 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

compare their ‘score update’ posts against their ‘player Q and As’. That information allows them to approach partners and work out which Fan Stories 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 platforms – 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 official websites, where the advertising revenue is club-owned.

WHERE DOES SOCIAL MEDIA FIT IN?FOCUS ON FAN STORIES

62%Score updates

45%Event highlights

39%Team announcements

27%Goal of the month

26%Player statistics

25%Historical/past content

24%Event statistics

21%Player/Team of the month

19%Player/Team interviews

11%Player birthdays

VARIATION OF INTEREST IN DIFFERENT SOCIAL MEDIA FAN STORIES

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


The global averages for each of the seven behavioural segments (shown on page 7) show 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 significant market differences in the way sports fans have evolved and the behaviours displayed towards sponsorship – from the high proportion of Connection Fans in the USA to the abundance of Armchair Fans in Japan, to Germany’s greater proportion of Game Experts; vital information for brands and rights-holders looking to target specific pockets of a fan base. Repucom, drawing on its global expertise, examined the development of fans and fandom across several major markets.

GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVES

“ 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, Nielsen Sports

A 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 significantly. 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 decentralised from Tokyo. The 2002 FIFA World Cup attracted a large female demographic, with more casual fans supporting the national team and ultimately attending 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 significant moment in the country’s continued sporting development – just as the 1964 edition ignited Japanese interest in Olympic sports.

JAPAN

TREND POSITIVE 7% GAME E XPERT 12% CONNECTION FAN 6% ARMCHAIR FAN 22% BUSY 15% DISENGAGED 23% CYNIC 7%

Friends and family first: Technology has been the biggest 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 community, 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 longstanding 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.


USA

From factory to football: Fan culture in Germany, much like the UK, has its roots in the country’s working class. In football, local businesses and factories developed their own clubs – Bayer 04 Leverkusen 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 hockey, basketball, handball and even winter sports.


GERMANY


Looking for that national moment: Britons tend to relish 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, notably 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 Wimbledon victories, and England FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championship matches.

UK


Cynical? Us?: The Australian sports market has traditionally driven by geography – National Rugby League (NRL) is more popular in Sydney or Brisbane, whereas in Melbourne or Perth Australian Rules Football (AFL) is stronger. Across what is a relatively small population of 21 million people, these two competitions alone have sustained 34 teams across winter competitions. Increasing ease of accessibility to US and European sports, and new women’s competitions across netball, cricket, and the AFL, as well as the growth of domestic football, which has successfully tapped into migrant subcultures, have created a highly competitive landscape, flooded with a plethora of sports content. Australians are increasingly being more selective about what they choose to engage with. 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.

A market in development: China’s sports market is developing rapidly, with major investment in teams, leagues, facilities and grassroots programmes, particularly in football. 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 table 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 Olympics – and the huge recognition for the likes of now-retired tennis player Li Na.


Collective spirit: In culturally diverse Malaysia, sport plays a role as the common interest, and when brands play to this collective spirit, fans are responsive. Sponsorship 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. Malaysians 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 population 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.

Major events, major opportunity: Major events, major opportunity: Although football dominates in Mexico – and 67% of the football fan base is concentrated on four of the 18 top-tier clubs - there are significant opportunities opening up for other sports to grab a share of the limelight. Sports participation and fanaticism is rising, especially in the country’s largest cities, while many rights holders are going through a process of professionalization. Major investments in events – the return of Formula One to Mexico City and a regular-season NFL game among them – are also helping to attract fans to different sports, while the rise of OTT and digital broadcasting is helping to find and serve new audiences. The Rio 2016 Olympic Games were broadcast via an OTT platform in Mexico, while Chivas, one of the country’s leading football clubs, has also launched its own direct-to-consumer channel.



AUSTRALIA CHINA

MALAYSIA

MEXICO



2

By identifying different types of fan, content and activations can be tailored to specific groups.

REVOLUTIONWHAT ARE THE SEVEN FAN GROUPS? WHICH ACTIVATIONS WORK BEST FOR EACH ONE? AND HOW DO WE MAKE THESE INSIGHTS WORK FOR US?

32%OF EUROPE AN FOOTBALL FANS ARE CONNECTION FANS

FAN DNA : NFL and European football: The data on the next couple of pages offers a comparison of fan groups between National Football League (NFL) fans in the United States and European football fans in Europe. 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 affiliation is evidently an important part of their personal branding – the data breaking down fan segmentation amongst the top five 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 Europe, 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.

TM


Oakland Raiders fans ahead of the NFL team’s November 2016 game against Houston Texans in Mexico City.

Schalke 04 supporters backing their team during a Bundesliga game versus Wolfsburg in April 2015.

Caption xoxoPa non pa consed que nis mintibus et es numet magnihi cillace.

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

FAN DNATM SEGMENTS

NFL EUROPE AN FOOTBALL

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

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%

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%

NFL TeamsPremier League Teams

TOP 5 TE AMS

Connection Fan Game Expert Armchair FanTrend Positive

11%Trend Positive 6%Trend Positive

30%Connection Fan 32%Connection Fan

15%Game Expert 14%Game Expert

14%Armchair Fan 7%Armchair Fan

4%Busy 4%Busy

11%Disengaged 11%Disengaged

16%Cynic 26%Cynic


TREND POSITIVES

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 control 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, passionate and interested in many areas outside sport. They consider themselves early-adopters and are image-conscious. They think of themselves as trendsetters and are brand-loyal. They consume sport and information about it via any type of media, including social media.

THEY LOVE SPORT – AND WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT THEM

51%49%

Male

Female

25%<30

49%30 – 49

26%50+

22%Lower

28%Middle

45%Higher

16%Little

39%Interested

45%Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

While Score Updates score highly across all Fan DNATM segments, there are several Fan Stories – content themes distributed across multiple digital and social channels – which can be effective in targeting 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 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 Instagram posts showcasing the best shots from a player GQ shoot, and the All England Club’s Wimbledon shot of the day and highlight clips during The Championships.

PLAYER AWARDS AND EVENT HIGHLIGHTSFAN STORIES T M

How to communicate with them?

• Ride their passion and make them visible• Lifestyle and fashion• New content to share

SCORE UPDATES 75% TEAM ANNOUNCEMENTS 51% EVENT HIGHLIGHTS 36% PLAYER STATISTICS 36%

ACTIVATIONS WHICH THIS FAN GROUP LOVE 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!

GLOBAL AVERAGE: TREND POSITIVE 9% GAME EXPERT 13% CONNECTION FAN 25% ARMCHAIR FAN 18% BUSY 18% DISENGAGED 6% CYNIC 11%

JOSE MOURINHO – HUBLOT ACTIVIA AND SHAKIR A – WORLD FOOD PROGR AMME

HERMES TICKE T TUESDAY – BUNDESLIGA CARP L ADIES – HIROSHIMA CARP

DAVID’S TRIKOT (JERSE Y) SHOP – HYPOVEREINSBANK

JOACHIM LÖW – NIVE A MEN DEUTSCHL AND

GROOMING LOUNGE – A XE

BECAUSE FUBOL – HYUNDAI AND THE WORLD CUP

FACE THE FINALS – AFL FINALS SERIES 2014

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

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 combining to highlight the work of the World Food Programme’s school meals initiative at the start of the track’s video.

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

The Japanese baseball club made a concer-ted effort to attract a female demographic to the sport, through branded clothing, accessories and campaigns.

The Japanese baseball club made a concerted effort to attract a female demographic to the sport, through branded clothing, accessories and campaigns.

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

To launch its new White Label line, AXE created a pop-up salon called the AXE Grooming Lounge at the College Football National Championship. The lounge provided free hair styling and neck massages to fans attending the game. While AXE has traditionally appealed to teen boys, the White Label line was more ‘grown-up’ and targeted ‘sophisticated’ men.

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 #Because-Futbol campaign, highlighting the parallels between the loyalty of football fans and research which demonstrated consumer loyalty to Hyundai. Advertising spots included a youngster’s obsession with trying to avoid the results of World Cup games.

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.

Who they are?


GAME EXPERTS

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 detail, 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 helping their team or enhancing their experience 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.

THEY WANT FACTS, STATISTICS AND TACTICS

65%35%

Male

Female

24%<30

41%30 – 49

35%50+

29%Lower

30%Middle

31%Higher

22%Little

47%Interested

31%Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

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

scenes content, including information from training camps and sessions, plus innovations like Manchester City’s Tunnel Cam. Player interviews 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.

A THIRST FOR INFORMATION

• Stick to the facts• Statistics, statistics, statistics• Show benefits to their team


ACTIVATIONS WHICH THIS FAN GROUP LOVE


US OPEN – IBM POWER PL AYER – YINGLI

TACTICS PRE VIE W – MERCEDES-BENZ

L AMTR ACKER – IBM

VOLKSWAGEN TALK – WERDER BREMEN

STARPL AYER – HEINEKEN LEGENDARY SERIES – YOK AHAMA BAYSTARS

HERTHAHELDEN – HERTHA BERLIN AND DEUTSCHE BAHN

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.

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

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

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.

A series of short YouTube interviews with Werder Bremen players.

Heineken’s StarPlayer app, to complement its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League, works in real-time, with fans encouraged 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 accurate their predictions are.

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

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 concerted club and sponsor effort to link the stadium experience with the possibilities offered by the digital world.


Who they are?

FAN STORIES T M


CONNECTION FANS

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 opportunities 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 millions of parents taking their child athletes to practice 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 products. They like to stand out from the crowd by buying brands that others don’t. Their fashion sense is influenced 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 decision-making.

When Connection Fans see a sports star or celebrity 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.

COMING TOGETHER TO ENJOY SPORTS

54%46%

Male

Female

39%<30

47%30 – 49

15%50+

25%Lower

30%Middle

37%Higher

16%Little

41%Interested

43%Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

Aside from score updates, the Fan Stories 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 showing Didier Drogba sitting alongside Thierry Henry at an NBA game – and Fan Stories such as the National Football League’s Facebook player birthday messages tend to play well with this group. Archive content fares less well when targeting this group.

TEAM ANNOUNCEMENTSFAN STORIES T M

• Shareability• Include their friends and family• Player endorsement



Who they are?

ACTIVATIONS WHICH THIS FAN GROUP LOVE 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.


‘IMMORTAL FANS’ – SPORT CLUBE RECIFE

# SOSL AUNDRY – ALL AND SNUGGLE LIT TLE LE AGUE WORLD SERIES 2013

‘FANSHAKE’ – NAB

CELEBR ATION OF FAMILY – THANK-YOU MOM – P&G AND THE OLYMPICS

Helping solve the family authorisation problem 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’.

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 washing machine for the chance to win prizes like coupons, stickers or a “Snuggle” teddy bear.

NAB’s #fanshake campaign encouraged fans to make bets between each other, pledging to, for example, wear a rival Australian 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.

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 Olympians, 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.”

PL AY 60 CHALLENGE – NFL AND THE AMERICAN HE ART 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 undertake the recommended 60 minutes of physical exercise per day. Since then, teacher training guides and videos have been produced and an online tracker developed to encourage parents and educators to encourage ongoing physical activity, built around the six-week Play 60 Challenge.

HYPED FOR HALF TIME – 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 including 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.

FANBANDE – DFB

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


ARMCHAIR FANS BUSY DISENGAGED CYNIC

Armchair Fans’ principal underlying motivation for being 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 aspect of their lives. They prefer to spend a quiet evening at home to going out and TV is their main form of entertainment.

They are interested in sport, especially the thrill and social currency of major events, but sport is but one part of a wide entertainment landscape for them. They are not die-hards.

Sponsorship is regarded generally in a positive manner, especially for the big events – the X Factors, the Wimbledons, the FA Cup Finals – which Armchair Fans watch from the comfort of their own home.

The key to understanding Busy Fans is that they are relatively disengaged from sport due to other priorities in their busy lives, not because they don’t enjoy it. The challenge in engaging them is to find a way of fitting in with their full lives.

They tend to have an average approach to anything, including sponsorship. They regard sponsorship as neither 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.

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 happening 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 exciting to bother about big issues. They think brands matter, but they don’t want to be judged.

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

This group are disillusioned towards the money flowing into sport. They accept that sponsorship is a reality, though they will stay away from it.

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

CONNECTING TO THE WORLD, FROM HOME

FAMILY, WORK – AND THAT’S ABOUT IT

JUST LEAVE ME ALONE – I JUST DON’T CARE

SPONSORSHIP IS A NECESSARY EVIL

45%55%

Male

Female

22%<30

36%30 – 49

41%50+

29%Lower

29%Middle

31%Higher

36%Little

4 4%Interested

20%Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

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. Neither is historical club or player information, or interviews with players.

DON’T BOMBARD THEMFAN STORIES T M

• Exploit big event resonance• Sport and celebrity



Who they are?

GLOBAL AVERAGE: TREND POSITIVE 9% GAME EXPERT 13% CONNECTION FAN 25%ARMCHAIR FAN 18% BUSY 18% DISENGAGED 6% CYNIC 11%

42%58%

Male

Female

30%<30

39%30 – 49

31%50+

32%Lower

28%Middle

30%Higher

50%Little

38%Interested

Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

• Discreetly involve family

• When? At the weekend


Who they are?

42%58%

Male

Female

36%<30

38%30 – 49

26%50+

37%Lower

29%Middle

21%Higher

52%Little

37%Interested

Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

• Keep it simple

• Activity outside sport


Who they are?

48%52%

Male

Female

<30

33%30 – 49

51%50+

33%Lower

29%Middle

27%Higher

51%Little

36%Interested

Very

GENDER

AGE GROUPS

INCOME GROUP

INTERESTIN SPORT

• Social impact

• Ethics matter


Who they are?

12% 11% 13%

16%


THE REVOLUTION CONTINUESThe 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 simply understanding the few different reasons why fans are fans in the first place and then engaging them in ways that resonate with that underlying motivation. And this pattern holds across fans of sports and entertainment worldwide.

Growing numbers of rights-holders, sponsor brands and broadcasters around the world using technology 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.

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Nielsen Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

Photography: Front-Cover: istockimages / AfricaImages, Page 14: istockimages / piola666, Page 24: istockimages / kizilkayaphotos. All the others are provided by AFP.

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