Lampard is showing me around

I gave my personal standing ovation this morning to Adidas and Chelsea FC.

Got an email from Adidas on behalf of the football club (the importance of a database and data collection on your audience, remember?), asking if I wanted to become Chelsea FC's 12th man…

Hell yeah! I thought and clicked on the link.

I inserted my name and surname, my nationality and there I was, full screen video, walking outside Stamford Bridge, cheered by fans, then inside the off limit area.

The press is breaking the news...

I was greeted by name by the staff at the entrance, who also showed me the newspaper of the day breaking the news of MY arrival at the club, and got a warm reception in front of the locker room by Ballack. While stepping in the “sanctuary” of MY new team, I noticed MY name on Ancelotti’s list, stuck on the door.

Once inside, Frank Lampard took me to my locker, where a Chelsea uniform with MY name on it was hanging from the wall.
Then off we went, on to the pitch, greeted by dozens of thousands of fans.

What an amazing initiative!

Goal? Promoting the sale of personalized official uniforms and creating a viral video engaging fans and creating involvement.

Petr Cech's welcome was quite warm

Technology? Nothing new, a widely used software can make your name appear on the fly on any pictures or videos, the video was shot with a handy cam: it was the idea to be absolutely spot on.

What a marvellous example that technology is only a medium: it’s content and creativity that make the difference.

And now… sorry guys I have to run: Ancelotti is calling me for training!

As I am progressing through our road show and meet a lot of Sport Organisations, I realise that the big bottleneck is right there.

While in many other cases, industries and situations, there is no clear answer to the “big question”, in case of Sport Organisations the solution is right there.

One President of a League told me last week, showing me a nice initiative developed online: “this idea was great, and we had such a low response. The sponsor wasn’t happy”.

The initiative was really good, I must admit it.

But it was a drop of water in the sand: who was it directed to? To their audience right? But what audience? They have no interaction or engagement with their fans in their online presence, they never planned to create and grow an audience and neither have one.

Their website is a “read only” website, a brochure where fans have no place whatsoever.

And here comes the bottom of the issue:

A great initiative by itself doesn’t build a great audience.

It is a great, active, engaged audience that makes an initiative effective and successful.

Start developing your online strategy and the results will come.

Different situation for less popular sports though, where minor leagues are struggling in finding opportunities to find good deals for their championships and tournaments, at times having even to pay for being aired.

As many European Organisations are lagging behind in their online strategies compared to their US counterparts, online live streaming could be a great alternative, when not a complement, to their TV presence.

Will Richmond from videonuze.com has done a great job collecting all the main headlines regarding online broadcasting (live or on demand) events of 2009.

- PGATour.com to Offer Live Video Streams of Key Holes for Tour Playoffs (B&C)

- U.S. Open to Stream Almost All Matches Online (PaidContent)

- DirecTV Offers NFL Sunday Ticket via Internet in NY Trial (USA Today)

- “Live at Wimbledon” Streaming Coverage Announced by NBC (Sports Media News)

- Cablevision Subs Will Gain Access to In-Market Streaming of YES’s Yankee Telecasts (Multichannel News)

- MLB.com Streams Live Baseball Games to the iPhone (NYTimes Bits)

- NBA Playoffs to Stream on Android App (Online Media Daily)

- Speedtv.com to Stream Part of Le Mans 24 Hours (Multichannel News)

- NHL to Launch Daily Stanley Cup Pre-game Web Series (Mediaweek – reg required)

- Follow the Masters on Your iPhone (Electronic House)

- March Madness! YouTube Gets Live Video via Silverlight (NewTeeVee)

A few weeks ago I also wrote about collegefanz.com broadcasting one live NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) football game each week, while broadcasting 24/7 non live games and news on their website.

It seems 2010 will be even fuller of content for sport fans around the world while new monetisation opportunities open up for European Sport Organisations willing to catch up with their online audiences, overall very much neglected so far.

Any examples of live broadcasts by minor leagues around the world are welcome!

Alessandro De Zanche

MLB, which counts at the time I write 353,291 followers on Twitter, is one of the most active Sport Organisations in the field of online technology and social media.

Very unusual choice, the @MLB blog,  but only apparently. At first we could ask ourselves why would MLB somehow go “against the nature” of Twitter, which by definition is “a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices”.

If we “extend” it into a blog then it is not Twitter anymore. Why not having just a blog then? Or why not combining Twitter and Facebook where the latter allows longer text and display images in a more attractive way?

I think that MLB has done the right strategic choice here.

They probably thought:

1. We have a good fan base on Twitter
2. Our Facebook page hasn’t got a particularly big audience ( 37,000 fans, as opposed to NHL with 130,000, NFL with 155,000 and NBA 1,415,000 fans), which wouldn’t give us enough visibility even if we wanted to integrate our message through Twitter and Facebook together.
3. Building an audience from scratch on a separate blog (as an official MLB “voice” besides all the great individual blogs on MLBlogs) would take time and probably disperse energy and fans.

And here is the only apparently unusual choice of a “Twitter extension” blog.

I agree with this strategy as it is the smartest way to leverage MLB’s at the moment biggest social network, the 353,291 followers on Twitter, and integrate the platform with an “appendix”, but more than anything else it shows how a powerful and smart strategy makes the difference and technology alone is useless.

I like also the choice of MLB to explore new paths and solutions, even going against the ones that will shout out at the “violation” of Twitter’s nature (oh please…).

Didn’t we say it already a few weeks ago? The limit of Online Technology is creativity and personality.

Alessandro De Zanche

Festa Mayor de Gràcia

The amazing feeling of a community tied together by an ancestral bond, the magnetic energy coming out from those events have been a living sample of all those values that we can find in Sport and Online Technology.
Whatever I looked, wherever I was, it was full of similarities with a Sport event, even more: it was the prototype of the dream fan base.

It works in this way: for months, kids, teenagers, adults up to elderly members of the community spend a lot of their free time to plan a theme for the next “Festa”, trying to come up with the best idea for a “make up” of their street/s that will compete against other streets and neighbourhoods.

Festa Major de Gràcia

For months the whole community interacts, works together, exchanges opinions and support, builds decorations and artefacts that will be mounted and displayed during the celebration (I am posting a few images).

The teamwork climax of the community is reached with the “Castell”, the human tower: members of the neighbourhood build a human tower of even more than 10 levels by climbing on each others’ shoulders. As you can imagine the level of trust and collaboration has to be absolute: usually adult men are the foundation of the tower and act also as a safety net for the upper levels, while the age of the tower elements decreseases with the upper levels up to the very top, usually a very small child.

Castell in Sitges

What are the values I found in those communities during the celebrations? Here are my keywords: Openness, Sharing, Collaboration, Interaction, Communities, Networking, ‘Tribe’, Passion, Loyalty, Commitment, Desire, Involvement, Community, Belonging, Family.

Can you recognise them? They are the same core values shared by Sport and Online Technology.

Can we take home some learning from those amazing social events? We should.

Passion and loyalty don’t come only with victories, they come through a bond between people, between fan and fan, fan and players, club and team, club and city, club and region, if not nation.

Online technology today gives us the tools to build all this: it takes time, it takes a lot of hard work, but it also takes a lot of authenticity and strong values that tools and platforms need to be filled with, as otherwise they would just be cold, empty, lifeless containers.

The US BIG EAST Conference Athletics gives us a great example of legend/myth building with its sixovertimes.com website, building on top of an historic game while in parallel developing revenue opportunities with the sale of related, celebrative items.

My last thought on the train back last night was about Technology: nice to note that while it is becoming more and more powerful, opening doors and opportunities like never before, at the same time it is increasing more than ever the importance of elements like humanity, authenticity, personal relationships and contribution.

Alessandro De Zanche

Usain Bolt & Berlino the bear

Berlino the Bear is apparently the top celebrity of the moment. Berlin 2009 Athletics World Championships' mascot has been constantly at the centre of the attention!

First it threw himself in a hug with pole vault champion Anna Rogowska.
Next came a little dance-and-drop with javelin gold medallist Steffi Nerius, then he was even hoisted onto the back of discus champ Robert Harting!

Later came the poses with Usain Bolt, who showed off a t-shirt with the words “Ich bin ein Berlino” written on it in biro, followed by a 50m race down the back straight in the aftermath of Bolt’s 200m demolition.
The climax though was reached with the ride he gave new 400m hurdles champion Melaine Walker.
A new star has born and it potentially has all the skills to become a web star too.

Stamford the lion

There are some great examples of big clubs or companies using their mascot’s popularity as a bridge to their online audiences, making them become de facto spokesman of the team: it is a very efficient way to gain popularity and affection.

One of the most popular mascots in Twitter is Stamford the Lion, that constantly updates Chelsea FC fans with news from the club and the locker room.

Outside sports another top celebrity is Aflac Duck, the voice of Aflac Insurance Policies.

Aflac Duck

A mascot with an online role allows to set a different tone in the conversation with the fan base, giving additional flexibility to the Organisation’s online communication strategy.

I love when creativity takes off and brings a down to earth, friendly, strong and loyal relationship between Organisation and fans: isn’t what we are supposed to build anyway?

If you know of any local mascots and good examples of their online roles, please share with us!

Alessandro De Zanche

Usain Bolt

As Puma’s viral video says, “it all happened in Beijing back in 2008. Bolt broke the world record for the 100m dash. In his excitement he raised his arms and pointed them to the sky. Like one of those Hercules-shooting-a-bow-and-a-arrow-statues you see in a museum”.

Since then the pose has become a Bolt’s trademark, requested by fans and media whenever and wherever the athlete goes, over and over again, “39,743.5″ times so far (as stated in the video).

“Puma has worked for the last year to develop a solution to this problem”: the Bolt arms!

The arms have been banned from the stadium in Berlin and now Puma is asking via Twitter to fans if anybody managed to “sneak” them inside.

Enjoy the video below but especially the great idea itself and the integrated use of social media.

Alessandro

The Bolt arms: click to watch the press conference

“The NAIA just doesn’t get very much exposure — you might even say none — from a TV point of view,” Rasmussen says. “We’ll go to each campus, and it will be an event when we come in. Our van is all wrapped with College Fanz branding, and sponsors and the students otherwise don’t get to experience this.”

The game broadcast, complete with pre- and post-game shows produced live on location, will use nine cameras housed in a modified 16-foot Wells Cargo trailer, which serves as an innovative mobile broadcasting unit.

“Everything today is miniaturised, so we’ve outfitted a van with a production trailer,” Rasmussen explains. “Our van carries nine cameras, and we’ll do pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows. We’re going to do real, live television on all of these campuses.”

European sport organisations: if you were ever wondering where the future lies…

Alessandro De Zanche

2009, same city, same wall.
The (still young!) guy, now in his late 30s, is taking a stroll downtown. He doesn’t live there anymore and doesn’t have many chances to be around so the walk has very much the feel of a trip back in time.
For his astonishment the notice boards are still there and still getting updated, 30 years on!

In an era where social technology is changing the Internet and the way the world works, the ancestors of Facebook and Twitter are still there, on the same wall, and with updated content (photos, calendar of events, summaries of the group’s previous days out).

Amazing and sweet to see how decades haven’t changed anything in what used to catch my attention as a kid, despite dozens of online platforms and tools ready for use being available to Sport organizations and communities.

But nothing happens without a reason and while I was reading the board, a middle-aged guy came to post new material (the display is protected by a glass so only the person who in the Internet age we would call the “administrator” can change the content).

We started talking.

He told me about their passion as a community, the fact that the kids of the early members are now in the club as well, about the friendship and relationships that generated through skiing together through the years.
At a certain point, still not believing to what I had just discovered, a mix of mellow memories of my childhood and professional interest, I asked why they kept the notice board up through decades and never moved it online, listing all the benefits and advantages.

The reply was clear: they don’t want a profit or any financial benefit whatsoever and they have a strong link to tradition, they don’t want the community grow uncontrolled and getting out of hand and they are worried about monitoring what people post.

I understand his point of view, as there could be a few misconceptions around the subject.
Stepping into the online social scenario is not only for people that have as a goal monetization and revenue and most of the times, with a help of a few settings, the community is the best monitor of itself.
One of the main motivators for joining the Social technology revolution is pride and the increasing need of belonging to a group with a defined identity.

I told my new friend that a new approach wouldn’t mean that they would have to take off their historic bulletin board but that it would also allow people like me that have never met any of them to share my experience and say thank you for this memory trip through my teenage years.

Alessandro De Zanche

Engagement, interaction, community, belonging, involvement, loyalty are just a few of the core concepts that are common to both Sport and online technology.

San Francisco 49ers

This is why I am closely following an amazing story happening in San Francisco, California.

After 63 years of history in the NFL and 5 Superbowl wins, the city of San Francisco is risking to lose the 49ers in favour of Santa Clara, CA.

The owners of the team and Santa Clara’s politicians are all up for the deal that would guarantee a brand new, state of the art, stadium for the 49ers, while on the other hand San Franciscans and San Francisco’s major are fighting to keep the team.

63 years of history, tradition, culture, tightly interconnected between the city, its people and the team, risk to be wiped off by a move dictated by financial interest: but are we sure that financial benefits on paper will meet the favours of the fan base and will not translate into a catastrophe for both the 49ers, that moving to Santa Clara would lose most of their audience and the city of San Francisco, that would lose not just a football team but a piece of its history and culture? Not to mention the cost of 900 million USD to finance the whole project.

In this context is where the hand of Technology appears, stretching towards Jeff Kruger. I don’t know Jeff personally, but I would like to analyse his challenge from an online marketing perspective.

He has thrown all his passion, love, sense of belonging and affection for the team on the table and created a website, savethe49ers.com, where he is providing information, blogging, hosting forums and links to articles on the subject. In his own words: “This site is for anyone who understands that keeping the 49ers in San Francisco via a new stadium is of critical importance. It’s not about football. It’s about the growth and standing of the city, its people, history, diversity, and the long-term viability of the greatest city in the world”.

The Internet as an instrument to send a wake up call to a city and a community.

Now, let’s step back a second and analyse San Francisco’s challenge in a way that we can all get some learnings from.

There are two types of approach that can be taken (I am talking theoretically for discussion purposes without knowing what Jeff is doing specifically):

The generic approach:

A Facebook and a Twitter page will be setup, creating an opportunity to grow an online community around the subject; the savethe49ers.com blog will be regularly updated but also the author will comment on other external blogs with links to the savethe49ers.com website, increasing the number of visits, a video could be designed focusing on the relationship between San Francisco, its people and the team through history, culture, and a glorious past. The video could be virally spread across multiple channels, touch people’s emotions, grow that voice “Save the 49ers!” so loud that the team’s owners and politicians will not be able to ignore it anymore.

The effective approach:

Wait a second: didn’t we mention Tradition, History, Culture, 63 years of life and 5 Super Bowl wins? Are we really sure that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and company will cover all our target audience and help to reach our goals? Answer: most likely it will not be enough and will have to be matched in parallel by other online actions aimed to the older part of the audience.

As of April ’09, Facebook’s users’ demographic profile say that over 54% of them are below the age of 24 and over 80% are younger than 34. It is true that the 35-54 segment is sky rocketing with an over 280% increase year on year but it is also true that if we want to count on the people that lived those successful and epic times of 49ers’ history we will have to focus on other directions, in parallel with the previous approach of tapping into the social networks where the younger target segments of the Save the 49ers spend a lot of their time on.

Take away: know your audience, perform a market research if needed, understand its demo and psychographic profiles and ONLY THEN formulate a strategy, followed by an appropriate choice of technology.

Only with a “scientific” and sophisticated approach your online presence will be productive and successful.

Alessandro De Zanche