UEFA Europa League
Despite the reputation of the UEFA (Union of European Football Association), the level of awareness/engagement of UEFA Europa League were far below that of UEFA Champions League. Not many soccer fans were interested in the league, and those who were not soccer fans, didn’t even know that the League had existed. Being a huge soccer fan myself, I never bothered to see Europa League games unless it was a final because I had a preconception that Europa League was for the clubs that weren’t good enough to take part in the Champions League.
Thus UEFA wanted to find a Marketing Agency that can help it promote Europa League, and an agency called “Dog Digital” was chosen as its partner. Dog Digital came up with various innovation solutions. It began with rebuilding Europa League’s Facebook Page, enriching the page with interesting and engaging contents about the Europe League games, players, and clubs. It also built customized apps to encourage users to participate by offering incentives and prizes, enticing participants to remain engaged even if their team were knocked out of the competition. All campaign were always translated into 8 different languages most commonly used in Europe, with location targeting features implemented so that the users receive contents in their own language. Upon semi-final, it released a campaign where users had to find a hidden photo of a trophy among 10,000 Europa League photos; and if they did manage to find it, they received an electronic code to enter a draw for winning Europa Final round ticket.
Many people questioned the effectiveness of integrating an International Game with Social Media Campaigns. But just within in 90 days, Facebook fans increased from 160,000 to 750,000, and its ads received 100 million impressions. The campaign was undoubtably a huge success, drastically increasing the fan base of Europa League.
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