Mid March saw Aston Villa Football Club (AVFC) launch of its 2018/19 season ticket marketing campaign with an inventive initiative that not only demonstrates the club’s commitment to ensuring its fans are the face of its campaigns, but also uses its CRM database to personalise supporter-specific creative messaging.
Running under Aston Villa’s ongoing ‘Part of the Pride’ moniker (a tagline that aims to unite everyone at Villa Park under one banner), the integrated, multi-platform campaigns spans videos, images and fan experiences and includes emotive, personalised messaging.
The core video and image campaign content, based on the theme ‘How You Became Part Of The Pride’, was initially created at an AVFC action-led day for supporters and at home game against Burton Albion.
Professional fan photographs and voxpop style video interviews form the centre piece of the marketing activity.
The videos were posted on the cub’s digital and social channels, such as Twitter,
Make sure you're #PartOfThePride by purchasing a 2018/19 season ticket today!
All the details you needhttps://t.co/Kfy8iEJqnZ #AVFC pic.twitter.com/928kqtpobN
— Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) March 15, 2018
Instagram,
and YouTube.
But as well as directed fans to the season ticlket purchasing channel at https://tickets.avfc.co.uk/subscriptions?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=SeasonTickets, the content also allowed fans to get involved and share their opinions on the club’s vision: thus increasing the engagement and community feel within the club.
The next stage of the campaign saw AVFC use its CRM database to identify both where fans in the campaign live and where they sit during a game.
Then the club’s marketers created location-specific billboards on their site and large format graphics on the concourse of the supporters’ seats.
A further phase was based around a tailored ‘10 Town Plan’, that put the club in direct communication with key fans using specific postcode information.
This plan identified 10 key areas where support is at its highest and then tailoring messages delivered through OOH advertising and local radio stations.
Commenting on the campaign, one Villa super fan said: “Getting an opportunity like this, to do something for the badge you love is fantastic. Be part of the pride. I’m already on the big flag, I did that last season and it was amazing! Just talking now sends shivers down my spine and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I love the Villa, love the Villa, I’m so proud to be part of the pride.”
Marketing Manager of Aston Villa Football Club, Adam Lowe, added: “At Aston Villa Football Club we have been working very hard to differentiate our marketing campaigns. Everything we do at Villa keeps the fan at the heart of the experience, embodied by #PartOfThePride that not only integrates content and commercial messages across the Club, but gives fans a brand campaign they can feel part of and engage with.”
Indeed, the club’s objective is that the 2018/19 season ticket campaign continues the trend for placing supporters at the heart of the club and using fans as the face of its campaigns.
“To bring our supporters closer, we used our CRM to pinpoint where fans in the campaign live and sit around Villa Park, so that ‘John from Erdington that sits in Lower Holte End’ would see a billboard of himself on our site in Erdington and large format graphics in the concourse by his seat,” explains Lowe.
“It adds a personal and engaging touch to an otherwise commercially driven campaign, whilst setting us apart from traditional marketing campaign planners. We use data as the fuel behind tailored and emotive campaigns across a full marketing mix, not just digital where the process is far easier for marketers.”
Comment:
According to the club, the campaign aims to differentiate AVFC in the crowded football market place, by using a driven by data-led approach to generate personalised messages.
Thus giving the fans a brand campaign they feel part of and can engage with.
The club describes the campaign as part of its ongoing strategy of ‘making supporters the face of the club’.
It also seems tactically sensible to launch your season ticket campaign for next year while the club are performing well on the pitch and battling it out for a promotion that could see the side return to the hallowed grounds of the Premier League.
Another recent innovative AVFC initiative was the launch of the club’s eCash project.
Links:
Aston Villa
https://www.facebook.com/avfcofficial
https://twitter.com/avfcofficial
https://www.instagram.com/avfcofficial/
https://www.snapchat.com/add/avfcofficial
https://www.youtube.com/user/avfcofficial
