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Winning Off The Pitch Mobile Marketing

espite numerousheadlines offinancial doom and

gloom, there’s never been abetter time for brands touse football as part of theirmarketing mix, according toone industry expert.

While many clubs havestruggled to maintainsponsorship revenue in thecurrent climate, the mantra ofTim Gentles, MD of the FootballFans Census (FFC), is thatfootball sponsorship offersbetter value than ever before forbrands seeking to extend theirmarketing reach.

Economic theory suggests thatthe brands that prosper longterm are actually those thatspend more in a recession onmarketing rather than less. Thecurrent combination offavourable prices, and crucially,highly specialised targetingtechniques, makes football anattractive option for marketers.According to Gentles “therenever been a better time forbrands to use football in theirmarketing mix: good deals areaplenty, and more than everbefore brands can monitor whothey are actually reaching”.

The profiling data now offeredby the FFC and TGI jointventure, Football Fans Index,means brands and clubs canmaximise the effectiveness oftheir marketing and ensure aclose fit between the brand andthe audience.

To prove it Gentles showed mean analysis of the up andcoming mobile brand, HTC.Using the data available to theFFI team, he plots the potentialaudience of ‘mobile savvy’ usersat 3.5million consumers, basedon a criteria of consumers usingat least 10 more technical phoneapplications.

By Jon Busk

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71Research

From there he is then able to paint apicture of the typical lifestyle of theseusers, again based on hard data. Theyare considerably more likely than theaverage to be in the 25-34 age group,spend over £70 a month on theirmobile bill and agree they ‘love buyingnew gadgets before most of theirfriends’. Interestingly they have thepotential to be active advocates of newtechnology and brands that provide it:they are twice as likely to talk to manydifferent groups about their phones,and four times as likely to post phonecomments or reviews online.

“The data empowers marketers morethan ever before; we can tell you whatyour audience had for breakfast, whatclothes they’ll be wearing right up towhat kind of car brands they will buy.”

To illustrate the point further Gentlesreveals that according to the data, the‘mobile savvy’ audience is twice aslikely to agree with the statement ‘I tendto buy from companies who sponsorsports events and teams’. On top ofthat their top four sporting eventsfollowed are the Champions League,The World Cup, the Premier Leagueand the FA Cup. So in the example caseof HTC, the case for marketing throughfootball looks compelling.

For the cherry on the top though, the FFIcan even identify which clubs specifictarget audiences are most likely tofollow. For HTC, their audience of‘Savvy users’’ is 38% more likely to bean Arsenal fan, compared to 3% morelikely to be a Liverpool fan, whileEverton is the club they are least likely tosupport.

The data is a powerful weapon forbrands looking to maximise their ROI,or clubs looking to market themselves,according to TGI’s Russ Budden “thedays of doing deals based on vaguenotions of brand fit, or cosy friendshipsin the boardroom are over; we have thedata to tightly match clubs with brandstheir fans are receptive to.”

Football sponsorship is clearly acredible option for brands seeking toinvest in marketing. And for HTC, onthe road out of recession, they mightjust want to stop off at the EmiratesStadium.

For more information on footballresearch please contact TimGentles on + 44 (0)20 7665 4127/ tim@footballfanscensus.com orRuss Budden +44 (0)20 8433 4094Russell.Budden@BMRB.co.uk

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