It’s an interesting question ‘are sport clubs now the next retail media powerhouses?’, as over the last couple of years there has been a 20% YOY increase in the advertising revenues for retail media companies in especially the supermarket sector. Now we are seeing how sports club’s namely football teams build retail media businesses.
Now you may be thinking that what does a football team have in common with a supermarket for instance? Well, let’s look at the similarities.
- Both have a loyal customer base
- Both can target based on insights and behaviour (1st party)
- Target promotions
- Both sell in-store (the supermarket — the football ground and store)
- Both sell off-site with advertising and promotional activities
- Both have large social followings and sit at the heart of their communities
The Key Drivers for this New Focus
Sports clubs are really focusing in on this new area, the ability to drive new revenue streams and to provide a better experience for their customers.
Think of how the data gathered now can lead to added revenue and an enhanced fan experience. So the football club knows that fan X has a season ticket, they know that they attended specific player experiences, so why not offer that fan incentives to buy signed material, promotional shirts, or partner owned products?
This new experience for not only the fan but the club is all based around data, data that drives insight and activities.
Who are the New Retail Media Businesses?
Well, anyone who interacts with their customers digitally and in person. Traditionally this started off as the large grocery chains with their large customer bases who also sold brand products such as Coca-Cola and found ways to monetise all this with the rise in analytics and 1PD, this data of course was highly prized by brands such as Coca-Cola. These more traditional retail businesses have seen the importance of having a digital platform on which their customers can interact with them and make purchases and be presented with relevant offers (advertising). These businesses have invested more heavily and as such have much more advanced platforms that provide the customer 360° and rich analytics required.
For the new media businesses platforms have evolved in isolation and are not joined up, they certainly are not future-proof or provide a full 360° view of the customer. The best platforms integrate activities across all the touchpoints they have with their customers, which is vital for the success of their business.
These platforms need to tie in all the areas that for instance a football team understands today but be flexible enough to cater for those areas yet to be developed. These could be digital advertising, membership, promotions, tickets etc.
The diagram below gives an illustration of how this could look for a football club.
So what are the differences between a football team and a more traditional media business such as a grocery chain? Well, we can see in the diagram below that the differences are very small and that they both are very similar in terms of what they do and what they sell as a retail media business.
Why is Customer Engagement so Important to Retail Media?
Well, let’s take a use case for a football team. Fans are the lifeblood of a sports club; sports clubs need to build a bond with their fans. This bond must also be seen in terms of how additional revenue streams can be developed. Engaged fans typically are more committed and are more likely to purchase merchandise and attend other events, thus affecting their customer lifetime value to the club. They are also more likely to feel an affinity with club partners, due to a shared feeling of support.
With clubs ever keen to ‘know’ their fans and to provide better experiences and thus fan engagement, this necessitates an understanding of what ‘fans’ want and need. Fans need to be provided with a platform that allows them to engage, the platform should also be ‘joined up’ and provide what has become known as a customer 360°. As you can see below this customer 360° (fan journey and touchpoints) provides the fan with the ability to reach their club as never before, it also provides the club with never before chances to engage and drive additional streams previously not available!
The Customer 360° and Football Fans
Engaging your fan base and enhancing their experience when they are at the stadium on match day has been a challenge for many sports clubs to get to grips with. Many of these clubs have developed solutions for each one of the interactions shown above, but these activities tend to be done in silos and not joined up. CRM platforms like Salesforce are driving ‘fan engagement’ to provide a full customer 360° of all the business interactions.
Growing Revenue
One of the key activities for the new retail media business is in growing revenue. This is allowing them to identify new areas for growth and in return provide a better experience for their customers.
In the case of the Football club, fan engagement is extremely beneficial in not only driving revenue but binding the club to the fans with an enhanced experience. This revenue that can be driven from areas such as:
- Growing ticket sales
- Sponsorships
- Data Utilisation
- Digital advertising
- 1PD and analytics
- Merch
This goal is all about monetization of the fan.
And this is where we come to the interesting part, the data! With the rise of retail media businesses, they are now in the business of data! All the data they can collect about their fans/ customers, what they bought, what they like, this is a data goldmine.
In the flow below, let’s have a look at the data points that can be captured from all the different interactions a fan might have with a football club. These interactions will be very similar to a traditional retail business.
The data flow for a traditional retail media business is so similar to that of the football club, membership and fans are at the end of the day customers, customers with valuable data. Data that directs intention and buying patterns, and all of that data is highly valued by the brands that are being sold.
The Data Goldmine (1PD)
Growing 1PD is one of the key bi-products of customer/ fan engagement and will become one of the major benefits to retail media businesses such as sports clubs. As 3rd party cookie tracking is eliminated, the importance of 1st party data is critical for efficient marketing. The 1PD is providing a data goldmine for analytics and optimised selling to the customers of the retail media businesses.
Traditionally we have seen businesses collect 1st party by growing through their digital platforms for example website, mobile app and email; and collecting contact information through these platforms in exchange for perks, draws and other prizes. BUT with sports clubs this trade off of data with the fans is much more ‘willing’. Fans are happy for ‘their’ club to know more about them so that they can be more involved. Based off all this data that is now being collected, from all the different activities, this allows the club to segment their audience and send them personalized content and offers providing the fan with tailored information and services. In the case of the grocery chains, this improved marketing and data analysis provides the customer with targeted offers and incentives.
Monetising Data
So, how can this data be monetised? This is an area that is in its infancy for advertising at retail media businesses. An example for a football team could be where a brand such ‘the team kit maker’ can be targeted to sponsor the merchandising pages etc. If you look at many club websites, you will now see banners and MPU’s providing yet another stream of revenue to the clubs. When you consider that football clubs so often sit at the heart (both physically and metaphorically) of their communities, it is an unmatched opportunity for geographically based monetisation.
Clubs are recognising that every fan engagement touchpoint represents an opportunity to collect data that can drive further value for themselves, to fans and to sponsors.
How Could This Work Using ADvendio?
A lot of retail media businesses have only just put a toe in the water and have not invested in full 360° solutions such as ADvendio. With the rise in financial opportunities that can now be seen, we are seeing a rush to invest. Running the operation in Excel and email will only take you so far.
Where the business can now see ROI in implementing a system, the possibilities are far-reaching. Systemising the workflow will provide lots of benefits, namely in the capturing of better data. The data that the business now holds in turn provides an opportunity for monetisation.
The ADvendio platform is already being used by some of the world’s most successful retailers to support them in growing and developing these new areas of the business, and in providing capabilities for future expansion. The key is in enabling retailers, for whom advertising monetisation is not their core competency, to start fast, leverage best practice, and quickly deliver on a new strategic opportunity in market.
The diagram below looks at an example to describe what an ADvendio implementation could look like for a football team that has similar touchpoints. As ADvendio is a native Salesforce managed app, it is easy to link to Salesforce Marketing and Data cloud. ADvendio’s pre-existing connections mean you can quickly leverage a wider technology stack to activate and utilise your data integrations such as Google Ad Manager, Meta, Pinterest, TikTok and more enable the joining of a club’s social following with their in-store and on-site audiences.
However, it is important to state that the diagram above the full 360° might not be achievable initially. It may be that the sports team wants to do this in stages. With this in mind, the first stage that ADvendio can help with is in the monetisation of their audiences with digital advertising (both on-site and off-site, e.g. via socials) as well as non-digital inventory, and linking that into the existing architecture. ADvendio with its flexible integrations out of the box can help to achieve this by harmonisation of data for analysis and reporting.
The diagram below illustrates what this could look like with ADvendio handling the advertising not only for off-site but in-store, along with optimising digital revenues.
Conclusion
Football clubs are definitely the next retail media powerhouses. They have so many similarities to grocery chains, they have definitely prospered over the last couple of years, taking advantage of the changes in advertising spend and more targeted selling to the fans of the club. All of this is benefiting the clubs and providing an enhanced experience for both the local, and the international fan. The more the clubs know their fans and what they want, the more they can serve them.
What is clear is that Fan engagement is one of the most important areas now for sports clubs and their commercial/marketing teams, no club can afford to ignore this as it is now a vital part of the way they engage with their consumers (the fans). What this is also doing is providing those clubs that invest in these solutions to open revenue streams and opportunities that were never before possible, whilst also further cementing themselves at the heart of the communities which they serve.
Originally posted on ADvendio.com on 2nd August 2024.
