Aston Villa’s #MyVillaMoments season ticket campaign of 2017/18 earned multiple nominations collectively at the ‘Engage’ and ‘Football Business’ Awards for customer engagement excellence – and it was great to deliver content for this project.
The campaign – conceived, implemented and driven by the marketing department and the most successful over the past 10 years – was nominated for the Best Use of Technology in Customer Engagement (Engage), Best Use of Innovation in Customer Engagement (Engage), Best Club Marketing Initiative (FBA) and Best Use of Technology (FBA).
The #MyVillaMoments campaign included the combination of various live data sources to create a progressive, fully personalised and responsive website.
This allowed fans to re-live the defining moments of the previous campaign – to truly see what they’d be missing without a season ticket for the upcoming term.
The personalised web page not only detailed seat/price information for the coming campaign but also showed personal moments of the previous season.
Working with data providers Sports Alliance, the personalised web page showed the key moments witnessed at Villa Park as a season ticket holder – displayed on an informative infographic.
For example, you’d be able to see how many Jonathan Kodjia goals you’d witnessed, the distance you’d travelled to matches and video highlights for key club moments.
Then social media really played its part as fans were asked to download the infographic from the website and then upload it to their channels like Twitter and Facebook using the #MyVillaMoments hashtag.
This created pride as a supporter in the various key stats accumulated.
Not only that but there were prizes available too for people using the hashtag – with money-can’t-buy offers like free travel to games, the chance to meet the manager, free tickets and a tour of the training ground among the items available.
The #MyVillaMoments hashtag was fully incorporated into the social media strategy for the upcoming season, too.
Before the season started, star players discussed their key moments from the previous campaign and how much of a key role the support of the fans would play.
This helped reiterate to fans the importance of a season ticket – and how their backing was vital for success to be achieved.
The hashtag was also used as the content team pinpointed great goals, great wins and great performances as they occurred.
Then social videos highlighing key stats surrounding the team were also produced, honing in on the ‘data’ inspired principles behind the campaign.
And #MyVillaMoments was also used for some of the more alternative content produced.
This is where creatively the team looked beyond the regulars such as press conference coverage, interviews and standard highlights as part of an overall disruptive digital strategy.
For example, there was ‘Holte Cam’ – a never-before-seen video angle of reaction to each game’s highlights.
Then there was the ‘Best Dancer’ competition video as well as the manager’s funniest bits from his various press conferences throughout the campaign.
Again, this was another example of working together as an organisation, leveraging the talents of the various departments (marketing in leading the project, content in producing across web and social and crm in bringing together the data) and finding common purpose as you stick clearly to a vision.
All in all, another project to be proud of.
Paul Brown 