Football brands around the world: how clubs engage their fans
Football clubs are arguably up there as the world’s most beloved brands. But how does something so inherently local inspire fandom around the world? How do the clubs keep a sense of who they are while engaging fans on the other side of the world? The Drum speaks to football clubs and marketers as part of our Globalization Deep Dive.
Football is the largest and most popular sport in the world and, like many other sports, is extremely accessible as it can be viewed almost everywhere in the world because of digitization.
This has been greatly enhanced through social media, streaming platforms and innovative solutions such as apps and smart cameras, allowing fans to get very close to football, the clubs and the individual athletes.
Ivan Codina, managing director for South East Asia, Japan, Korea and Australia at Spain’s top tier league LaLiga, explains that football has also become so popular globally because it is something easy to play, easy to understand and, overall, open to surprises no matter the level of the teams or the money that the clubs might have.
“The clubs have values, which can be easily shared by fans from very different countries, and once you understand the game and you identify with the values, history or specific players from one particular club, then it’s easy to start learning more about that team, the league it plays in, etc, and little by little you become a fan of that football brand,” he says.
The emotional bond between football and the fans is therefore enormous and the opportunities to interact with football in general – but also with the leagues, the clubs and the athletes – are greater than ever.
“The goal of a brand is to build a bond with consumers to sell products and/or services in the short and long term,” explains Damian François, the business director at Techonomy and SportsCloud, which advises and helps football clubs like PSV Eindhoven and Club Brugge with the development and implementation of their fanbase strategies.
“Because sport taps into the emotion of the consumer fans, it is therefore a very powerful tool for brands to use to connect and build their connection with the consumer. Just like in general marketing, you are not just going to offer products or services, but you are going to create inspiring stories for your fans.”
However, it is arguable as to how many clubs truly do know who their fans are, says Richard Harcus, the chief executive officer of Singapore and Vietnam based football consultancy company Harcus Consultancy Group who has worked with clubs such as Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund, Valencia CF and Selangor FC.
“This can vary from country to country, region to region and down through the leagues of each specific country. There is no one size fits all. Some clubs have regular fan group meetings, others connect through apps,” the qualified Uefa coach and professional scout explain.
“Some clubs have non-executives on the board and others simply do not bother with any of that. Of course, some clubs are fan-owned, some clubs have fan shares options, so there is no one size fits all answer to this. In short, some clubs do, some clubs do not, some clubs feel they do not need to, some fans do not know they have to.”
This challenge is more pronounced in the Asia Pacific, where one of the greatest challenges is to build a brand that is not dependent solely on the players.
A lot of emerging football countries are ‘icon markets’. This means that they follow a team (or multiple teams) because of an individual player, explains Tom Elsden, the senior business director at Mailman Group, which has worked with clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea in China.
“Our challenge is to use that as a catalyst for a greater fan following. We’ve worked with several teams, leagues and organizations to help establish a deeper relationship with fans that are built on their brand values. This has been delivered through brand campaigns with Hero videos, celebrity integration, and fan participation.”
Agreeing with Elsden, Ben Carlson, senior vice-president of entertainment at fandom analytics firm MarketCast, points out every footballer will eventually change clubs or retire, as in the case of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“The brand strategy must be bigger than the players,” he says. ”It has to celebrate a club’s heritage and legacy, the elements that make a club unique – such as local songs and kits – while keeping a keen eye on the future by driving interest in younger academy players. With a 360 approach to brand, a football club can create a brand strategy that can exist for generations.”
So, how are football clubs around the world engaging their fans?
Spain
Alfonso Díaz, chief executive of business at LaLiga club RCD Mallorca, says the basis of football is introduced into the club’s structure and, together with the club’s values, forms a very powerful brand.
This means the global communication and brand value of the competition itself (La Liga in this case), plus what the club itself brings, generates a spectacular mix that inspires the fan.
“The brand of that soccer club is something with which the fan feels identified, with which a feeling of belonging and loyalty is generated, and which is passed on from generation to generation. The commitment to the club goes beyond the matchday and allows the establishment of an emotional relationship that can lead to a commercial one due to the engagement built,” says Díaz.
Over at SD Eibar, its general business manager Unai Artetxe says social networks are the main channel of the relationship between clubs and fans as they allow the club to reach many users in a relatively simple and inexpensive way. For Eibar, being as small a population as it is, it allows the club to be known far beyond its borders.
Eibar has defined different user profiles, from the most local to the most global, and depending on the target it is addressing and what it wants to communicate it chooses different channels.
“There is a closer and more fluid communication with the club’s subscribers/members, which is much more emotional and direct, and there is another more generic channel which aims to make our club known to other types of followers, whether they are fans of Eibar itself, followers of other teams or even simply football fans, but who at any given time may see themselves reflected in what we are transmitting,” explains Artetxe.
In July 2021, La Liga club Valencia CF became the first club to display its fan token through Socios.com on the front of the shirt. In addition, Socios.com gave Valencianistas (its fans) with fan tokens $VCF the opportunity to choose the goal through which Valencia CF players would jump on to the pitch at Camp de Mestalla for home matches.
“Wearing pieces of your brand and distinctive branded accessories makes it easy to identify the football team you feel like your own along with attending the football games as a season ticket holder or entry-level fan,” explains Jorge García, marketing, and commercial director at Valencia CF.
“In this way, Valencia CF involved its fans in decisions that are part of the club’s day-to-day life.”
Germany
Benjamin Wahl, head of China at Germany’s top tier league Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund, says the club does not change its fan focus in a foreign market.
As the squad was unable to travel to China for its pre-season tour because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it combine on-the-ground activities such as stadium tours and store events with virtual fan experiences in a series of fan events in Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenyang, and Beijing with a tour called ’09 Days Around The World’.
In Beijing, which was the final stop of the tour, 200 fans and partners attended a parade of the German Cup trophy, which Dortmund won in 2020. There was also a live onsite Q&A with Cheny, one of China’s freestyle footballers, and former Bundesliga player Yang Chen, along with a virtual chat with club legend Lukasz Piszczek.
“Our main reason to come to China is our huge fan base. We want to be close to the fans and therefore be provide exclusive club information on our nine social media channels in China and organize fan parties in different cities every other weekend,” explains Wahl.
“In general, BVB has a fan-centric approach as the club does not belong to an owner, so feedback of fans is crucial. In Dortmund, we have our department for fan relations and regular meetings with fans in the stadium. In China, we are in close contact with all fan club leaders and visit each fan club regularly.”
Indonesia
Persib Bandung, a club playing in Indonesia’s top league Liga 1, believes someone can be a fan of a certain football club because the family or their community is a fan of that club.
This means the fandom is passed down culturally and someone can become a fan because they’re exposed to some campaign, initiative or achievement of one club.
Gabriella Witdarmono, vice-president of partnership and activation at Persib, explains the club tries to stay relevant with its fans through offline and online activities. As a data-driven football club, she says the club understands fans can be reached through two means: organic and targeted fans.
”We tried several approaches in order to make them relate to us, Persib continuously conducts fans study while also maintaining communication through fans engagement function within the club,” says Witdarmono.
”Our study theme varies from time to time according to our business objectives. At certain times, we focused our study to find out how to better serve family group fans.”
For example, in its latest internal survey, 63% of Persib fans under 18 years of age stated that they have been supporters for six years or more. The club explains this means there is a ”regeneration” among its fanbase – while the older fans still exist, younger fans tend to pick up an interest in Persib as children. It hopes to retain its fans for a long time as well as getting new fans at the same time, ensuring the club’s sustainability.
Witdarmono claims Persib has fans purchasing its jersey from Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Amsterdam. There are also audiences from Malaysia, Vietnam, Hongkong and as far as the USA that become active viewers in its YouTube channel.
Persib wants these wide diverse fans to be able to still relate and feel close to the club even though they can’t watch Persib’s games in the stadium or meet its players directly. That’s why it tries to tap into different mediums according to the various target audiences’ profiles.
”For local fans, we try to involve them in our CSR initiative (Sauyunan) and invite them to our monthly gathering (Sampurasun) while maintaining the engagement with all the fans, including the international fans, through our digital channels, webinars, or online gatherings,” explains Witdarmono.
”Aside from that, we also attempted to have many more fan engagement content collaborations with international clubs, like the one that we did with Ajax FC.”
United States
In Major League Soccer, the Los Angeles FC is built around the notion of building from the ground up one person at a time and Nashville SC has the energy and rhythm of Nashville at its core. For these clubs, these ideas are core to their operation.
Dravid Bruce, senior vice president for brand and integrated marketing at MLS explains these strong ideas are often found by spending time with clubs spending time with current fans and potential fans, looking inward at what beliefs are at the core of the Club and the market opportunities that are not being delivered by the competition.
"Brand strategy is something that is core to who you are, it is the foundation and the driving heart of your club. Naturally, it should be evergreen and not change season over season. Finding what truly differentiates you and that is unique to your club (and city/community) is what every club should strive to achieve," explains Bruce.
"The great sports brands around the world are built on this notion that my business stands for X and it informs all of my behaviors and actions. Unlike a campaign, it is not temporal or linked to a moment in time."
MLS clubs also use a meaningful and thought-out market strategy to really take advantage in the long term. Given football is such a global sport, teams will at times have players who come from many parts of the world and that gives them permission to speak to potential fans in that country, explains Bruce.
That may lead to a fan in South Korea who is following a favorite player begin to support the club that he plays for.
"Distribution of TV and access to the product is critically important, it provides the ability to interact with a live broadcast and engage in a secondary experience that complements match day - whether that is watching in a bar with other local fans or engaging in social or virtual conversations," he says.
"Social media is the great borderless platform, it by definition stretches far and wide. Being smart about how you create content and where it gets served is a key lever to pull on."