This summer, we explored fan engagement behaviours throughout the Euro 2024 tournament and onto the Paris Olympics. Whilst we saw general apathy towards the England football team until the latter stages, it was younger audiences that showed high levels of interest and intrigue in both major events and across multiple verticals. This was driven by a real need to be up-to-date and on trend, with a constant desire to seek out new content across multiple platforms.
For the Euros, we recruited a dedicated panel in order to carry out specific surveys to gain a better understanding of different fan behaviours throughout the tournament. We gained many useful insights across different segments. These highlighted a significantly higher level of engagement amongst younger age groups. Perhaps even more telling was how much more optimistic and proud they were of the team. Gareth Southgate captured their hearts, a marked contrast from the levels of frustration evident amongst older audiences.Â
Throughout our study, it became clear that brands had missed an opportunity to target these younger audiences. No stand-out marketing campaign was directly targeting them. Whilst their live viewing is down, their levels of engagement across social media continues to grow.
With fan engagement taking place outside of live event viewing, we saw the power of the pundit fully realised. The Stick to Football podcast was shown on ITV, YouTube, and clipped up endlessly on TikTok, Twitter and Instagram. Live watchalongs by the likes of Talksport and Mark Goldbridge were an enjoyable alternative viewing option. Â
We have already seen Premier League teams looking to enhance their multi-channel strategies with their fantastic and well publicised kit launches. New presenters were brought in to facilitate a consistent content strategy to appease the fans’ desire for extra behind-the-scenes footage.
It is clear that the key is to develop and promote compelling stories around players and team journeys. These have a profound impact on deepening emotional connections with fans. Highlighting personal stories and achievements resonate extremely well with the audience.Â
The Olympics highlighted the power of social media in sport discovery. The vast array of sports, and the very nature of some of the disciplines lend themselves so well to shareable clips. We saw the likes of gymnastics, badminton, athletics, weightlifting, breakdancing and shooting all going viral – for slightly different reasons – but all served to drive significant online conversations, searches and re-posting of clips.
All of these findings led to our conclusion that brands missed the real and present opportunities to speak to younger audience’s by piggy-backing on these major sports events. Reactive content was the main winner. We suggest that learnings need to be taken from this –  brands don’t need risk fully committing to budgets / campaigns pre-tournament  (for example, Jack Grealish x Hellmans, Marcus Rashford x Google etc.)
As Charli XCX officially called an end to Brat Summer, the cultural phenomenon that captured the world has highlighted how brands can reach wider audiences with reactive content strategies that place these younger audiences right at the heart of their marketing strategies.
For more information on our fan engagement report, please contact tom@wearerelish.com
