All successful sports teams have something in common: they don’t rely on one single individual to achieve victory.
Why? Because they can’t. In order to reach goals (or kick them), you need a number of crucial parts and players to contribute. The same goes for the world of marketing – especially in today’s current digital media landscape.
Michael Jordan wouldn’t have racked up six NBA titles without teammates Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. In the same way, brands and organisations can’t reach their maximum audiences without the help of players covering every area of the ‘marketing’ court.
With 80 per cent of sports fans multi-screening sports content while watching live games, relying entirely on TV (or the Michael Jordan equivalent) to connect brands to fans is no longer enough.
The ubiquity of internet-connected devices has led the average sports fan to enhance their TV-watching experience with multiple screens, allowing them to access additional information and voice opinions. Fans move seamlessly between devices more swiftly than a soccer star moves teams – we known it’s all about the money!
Speaking of money, take a second to think about where some of yours is going these days. It’s probably safe to assume a portion is spent on a Kayo, Netflix, Stan or BINGE… or maybe all of them.
OTT platforms are part of modern viewing habits, and whilst linear TV still has a role to play, there’s no doubt audience fragmentation continues to increase as new platforms become more readily available.
According to Statista, 55 per cent of Australians have a subscription to a video on demand service. Rewind to 2013, and the percentage was sitting at 6 per cent. It’s incredible how far we’ve come, and how far we could have to go!
These viewing habits emerge from consumers demanding more, and not just through streaming services. They want deeper, more engaging content and they want it now. Instant gratification, the 24-hour news cycle and even next-day shipping has changed the way we consume and expect content.
Remember those days of delayed football games? In the blink of an eye, we’ve gone from playing with radio dials to get a fuzzy update, to “hey Siri, open Footy Live” to see how many score involvements Buddy Franklin has tallied.
And, ultimately, therein lies the power and rise of sporting apps.
We have all the access we could ask for at our fingertips. This is why sporting leagues and organisations have continued to invest in one of the most effective ways to connect to their audience.
Just look at the way worldwide sports apps are performing: last month ESPN Live Sports’ app recorded revenue of over US$8M, with over 800,000 new downloads according to SensorTower.
The NFL app is another big performer. In fact, ‘App Annie’, reported that collectively, sports streaming sites, which includes the NFL app, saw a 180 per cent growth in downloads during the first four days of the NFL season last year.
This growth is due to the emotional attachment to sport, which also extends Down Under, with over 18 million Australians identifying as ‘sports fans’.
Sportsmate, which already has more than one million ‘sports fans’ and growing, has seven unique sporting apps which provide fans with their desired sports content and experience that enhances the overall sports fan experience and allows marketers to connect with one of the country’s most engaged and lucrative audiences.
With the inclusion of LED embedded in live sports broadcast, Sportsmate’s growing technology solutions, along with second-screen devices and streaming platforms, allows brands to target avid sports fans with a unified experience, while delivering contextual messages based on the features of individual platforms.
It’s something OTT platforms are unable to do, and why marketers are focusing more and more of their strategies on these types of sports apps.
Undeniably, it’s exciting to see marketing teams now understanding the power of sport including multi-screening. Sportsmate endeavors to continue using new and exclusive technology to help brands kick goals long into the future.
“To live in the past is to die in the present,” New England Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick once said.
And it’s that precise mentality that has earned him and his franchise six Super Bowl championships across a two-decade span.
Organisations who continue to focus their marketing strategies on the trends of the past, such as advertising exclusively through television, face the risk of ‘dying in the present’ – no Super Bowl parties for them!
It’s through modern multi-screening, that brands will enjoy a successful future. All they need is a team effort to secure victory.
Need that extra player? Just ask a mate. A Sportsmate, in fact.
