M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment recently identified that 80% of women’s football tickets are sold to fans who are not on the FA’s database.
Now, it’s launching a new strategic approach including a refreshed brand identity – positioning itself as the passions agency – and according to managing director Laura Coller it’s this audience power that led to the decision.
The report behind the data which spurred the change – entitled ‘Fandom is dead. Welcome to fancom’ – details both the death of fandom and the need to focus on fan-centred communication. It is this which led to the 20-year-old agency’s rebrand, which includes Passion Pulse – a supercharged and focused strategic offering – which will be centred around an updated and creative brand identity.
Speaking to Marketing Beat Coller explains that: “It used to be that you identified yourself on Instagram based on age, sex and location but now people use a whole host of emojis tapping into the things they’re passionate about”.
“Leading with our passions as a society of people — we wanted to be more attuned to that kind of individuality and the individual person. Fancom is a new word we’re bringing to the market which we think is really representative of who our audience is today,” she continues.
“We want to educate clients that, via our Fancom thinking, the potential audience size is actually even bigger than with a more traditional Fandom-led approach as we are drawing audiences together. So the opportunity is even bigger and the connections are more meaningful.”
Many passions for sport
It is the agency’s new arm Passions Pulse which commissioned the research into fan behaviours and will inform future strategy as M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment enters the next stage of its journey.
As well as the statistic about women’s football other key findings include that 63% of people use their passions as a way to engage with others in real life, while 25% of people have at least seven passions.
As part of tailoring more to the individual Coller explains that the brand will be host to a range of initiatives throughout its 20-year anniversary and will ask 20 emerging artists to design their interpretation of the new passions tag, with each of the artists designs to be shared over the next 20 days.
“The new byline is really true to our skills set,” she added. “We’ve used the passions terminology for quite a few years and it has naturally evolved and migrated to the thinking we have now”.
Asked about whether the idea of passion, individuality and the collective experience plays into how people view sports Coller highlights that it recognises the specific experience and moments lived by those who engage with sports, whether its through going to games, watching highlights or watching a match on the television.
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Coller explains that the agency is moving away from basing its marketing on the broad terms of sports and entertainment alone and tapping into more niche areas, interests and communities within the sphere: “We’ve always focused on passions but we’re becoming more targeted to the individual through this idea of coinciding communities, rather than marketing with those broad strokes.
“M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment was set up twenty years ago around those massive macro passions. Those passions have diversified and atomised and there are now lots of big patterns and sub cultures”
What does fancom mean to Saatchi?
Highlighting that fancom is a fusion between fan and community rather than fan communications, Coller explains that the agency is targeting its approach “more to the individual, through this idea of lots of coalescing communities”.
This is based on hard research which states that fans each have an individual collection of between four and seven interests.
“The holy grail for brands is to have that emotional connection and something we’ve been thinking of more recently is this idea that most brands brief an agency with the starting point that they want to connect brands to consumers, but what if you use your brands to connect consumers to each other?”
As part of its plans to centre individuality and community power, the agency has plans to host more creative artists in its spaces, and to host a big event at the Saatchi gallery later this year, as well as looking to bring together people from its offices around the globe including Amsterdam, New York and Berlin.
“One of the biggest insights we’ve had is the idea that fans now have more power than they’ve ever had to make things change, and most of that is harnessed through social media where fans can control the spaces and say what they want. We’ve always been passion focused but we’re becoming more targeted”.
With the agency having played host to an array of clients including adidas, Absolut, Ballantine’s, Virgin Media 02 and Heineken, it’s no surprise to hear that there’s a core to the agency’s new approach. Coller summarises it neatly: “Fandom rules. It’s a kingdom, it’s this dominant voice. Fancom is the voice of many people coming together”.
Feature image credit: Passion Pulse
