The NFL dominates American sports with a passionate, well-established, multi-generational fan base that has enthusiastically – and increasingly – latched onto social media as an extension of their overall fan experience. It is an insatiable audience revved up to consume content about the sport they love as fast as you can create it.
However, go outside the U.S. -- to where American football is not a top of mind sport with an existing fan base -- and fan acquisition just does not happen organically.
Objective: Definition 6 developed the International Social Media Strategy for the NFL and was selected to execute the strategy in the United Kingdom. We were brought in specifically to support the NFL's expansion of its social media fan base in the UK and increase engagement with their three target audience personas: future fans, casual fans, and avid fans.
Strategy: Definition 6 worked with the NFL to identify the various phases of fandom experienced by American football fans, beginning from a position of "future fan" or "not familiar with the NFL" to "avidity" or a dedicated fan of the NFL. Within each phase, we identified the steps fans endure, from their very first interaction with the sport all the way through fan avidity.
The social media team developed a multi-faceted, multi-platform content strategy aligned to the fan journey so that the NFL could provide content that appealed to all sports fans in-market.
While the NFL may be incredibly popular in the U.S., fan acquisition does not happen organically abroad where American football is not a top of mind sport. The NFL sought out Definition 6 to take on this challenge because of our expertise in developing and implementing digital communications strategies. We are best known for our ability to create content that attracts audiences, helps brands tell their stories more effectively, and ultimately produce and deliver content that drives emotional connections with fans.
We deserve recognition for leveraging a unique competency to ensure the NFL would achieve its objective: we built a multi-city support team in London, New York, and Atlanta compromised of individuals whose backgrounds helped them understand the nuances of UK culture. This allowed them to identify ways in which we could make a natural, seamless connection between the NFL brand and everyday aspects in the lives of fans.
Key Strategies & Features:
The overall strategic objective of our work with NFL International was to increase the NFL fan base on social media in the UK region while improving post engagement across all channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Vine.
The comprehensive International Social Media Strategy effectively enabled the NFL to communicate with its international, UK-based fan base more successfully over the course of the 2014-2015 NFL season. All three NFL London games (officially known as the International Series Games) combined for record crowds at Wembley Stadium.
Outcome:
Top-Performing Post by Platform:
Vine
(Multimedia embed: The best-performing Vine post for any NFL-managed social media account. We created it to announce the lineup for the 2015-2016 NFL London games. It received more than 1.1M loops, permalink: https://vine.co/v/Oe1var00IYF)
