The Challenge: Building China’s First NFL Fan Club
The National Football League (NFL) is the most profitable sports property in the United States, with over 71% of Americans as loyal fans and major sponsors like Visa, Pepsi, Reebok and Sony. The NFL’s annual Superbowl is the most watched program in television history.
In China, American football (ganlanqiu, “olive ball” as the Chinese call it) is a brand new sport. With the NFL ready to begin its broadcast of weekly games on nationwide TV this fall, China’s NFL fan base is on the verge of explosion. The NFL tasked 21 Communications with developing an online and wireless loyalty program for Chinese fans.
Cutting Across Technologies
In building the new fan community, the NFL was committed to deploying a variety of marketing technologies to build loyalty with Chinese football fans on all available media. Central to the NFL’s integrated digital strategy is its new mobile service, which fans can join to receive weekly football alerts and chances to win prizes (via short message SMS) and full-color cheerleader pictures (multimedia message MMS).
The new NFL portal www.NFLchina.com invites fans to register for sports discussions (bulletin board BBS) and for the coming NFL personal online journal system (“Blog”). For those new to the sport, the website serves as an educational tool for viewing video of football plays like “punting” and “rushing” (with Real Player or Windows Media Player).
During the registration process, NFL members provide their address (e-mail) and instant message number (IM or, in China, QQ). The NFL will send opt-in content to NFL members according to their preferred delivery format.
Ben Ding of 21 Communications commented: “In building the digital community for the NFL, we wanted to provide football enthusiasts the opportunity to access information and interact with other fans on whichever device they prefer—let them know that the NFL is a serious sport with sophisticated multimedia capabilities for Chinese football fans.” |
