The countdown is on until kick-off for the World Cup 2014, and ahead of the first match ESPN has revealed to The Drum the completely overhauled ESPNFC global app and website, currently the world's fourth most-trafficked football destination.
The website redesign – which was two years in the making – marks the latest stage in ESPN#s ongoing strategy to be the destination for fans looking to keep up with the tournament, and is designed to meet the demands of people who are consuming content across an ever-expanding number of devices.
“In the past for an event like the World Cup we’ve been in the business of creating a mini site which is disposable frankly, a time box that only lives for 45 days. We’re doing the exact opposite,” Bimal Kapadia, senior director, global business and brand development, ESPNFC, told The Drum at an exclusive briefing in London.
Frequent visitors to the site will notice come 1 June – the date it will go live – that the old, cluttered design has been stripped back and greater emphasis has been put on video.
Created in-house, ESPN went with a flat design with easily digestible fonts, and a lot of white space. The main page is a mosaic of cells, with each cell containing only a snippet of information about the story sitting alongside a larger piece of media. Video is being used heavily in these cells and the clips can be played directly from the homepage without having to go into the story. It has also added an ever-scroll capability “Page views are less important, but time spent and engagement has become important. We talk a lot about serendipity. If you’re ten pixels away from the next thing and it can peak your interest maybe we’ll keep you an extra minute or two or three,” added Adam Deutsch, senior director, product development, ESPN digital and print media.He explained that the text-heavy old site was “very dense”, making content harder to find and with this new, visual, model “discoverability” is the goal. And at no other time will that be important than when the sporting world’s eyes are on Brazil. During those tournament weeks, the main page will be host to a dedicated World Cup hub offering up-to-the-minute scores, analysis, team news, and video highlights. ESPN now sees more traffic coming from mobile devices (tablet and smartphone) than desktop and so responsiveness has been key. “Previously ESPN had separate mobile and desktop sites, now the site will render correctly on any site, meeting the changing expectations of how sports fans consumer their content,” said Deutsch. “We’re seeing more and more fans on mobile [tablet and phone] so we need to make sure all of our properties work on all devices.”
There are also an increasing number of localised options on the global site, with a drop-down menu at the top taking people to a regional page which is populated with content decided by the local editorial team. Football (or soccer) is covered across the US, UK, and Latin America, but, until now, without much cooperation and collaboration between the bureaus. “We’ve made a concerted effort to connect them with the global framework. Our editorial staff for all the different editions, be it UK, US, or LatAm, are able to curate and determine the top stories they want on the homepage. We want to give the editors the autonomy to programme the way they feel is relevant to the fan,” said Kapadia. Commenting on the opportunities for advertisers, Charly Classen, VP and GM, ESPN EMEA, said that while it has all the IAB standard ad formats, ESPN will continue to work with the industry, agencies, and organisations, to come up with formats which are less intrusive to the user experience. Currently, it has six formats which are integrated with content on the site and are not part of the standard media kit. “We know that some markets are more mature than others, but where we can we want to help shape the conversations where we can work together with our teams. Essentially it goes into three different buckets – generic ad buys with our standard units, sponsorship/ownership, and then premium executions for some of our premium top-tier clients [including Nike],” said Kapadia.
The site is set to launch on 1 June and is being trailed with the launch of a refreshed iOS and Android app where the navigation was designed around three core content pillars: scores, news and now.Scores offers fans up-to-date stats as well as alerts to goals and greater access to information on teams and latest games. News curates the latest headlines of the day from ESPN’s global football coverage while Now integrates contextual live scoring and social media updates for selected tournaments, leagues, clubs and teams from ESPN FC Twitter handles, encouraging fans to interact with content on social channels from within the app. Similarly, it includes a dedicated World Cup section that will include in-progress video highlights in the US - where ESPN has broadcast rights to the event.
Reluctant to reveal details on the investment, Classon said that it is an ongoing strategy and that they have a list “two pages long” of changes they want to continue making to its web and mobile offerings. In terms of plans to invest the same way in its other properties – like ESPNscrum.com, ESPN Cricinfo.com, and Footytips.com – the plan is to take what it has learned from the ESPN FC revamp to apply to other sites further down the line.
