In the Fan Marketing Space, 2022 was a year of creativity, boldness and innovation. So let's kick off the new year by highlighting the accomplishments of those who succeeded in the previous one.
Read on to discover the winners of our third annual Fan Marketing Awards!
Best in Engagement Campaigns
Sports
The CPL teamed up with their partners at ComeOn! to create a season-long “free-to-play” wager where fans were encouraged to place their bets on the outcome of all upcoming games in the week. With a strong promotion strategy in place, the CPL team managed to get fans to return week after week to participate, driving more traffic to their app.
Key Takeaways:
A season-long initiative, with multiple engagements, can lead to long-term league growth. The Wager campaign is an excellent example of how to use week-over-week engagements to capture fans, make them sticky in your app and start building and tracking their interactions.
Gaming + Entertainment
The team at Gila River Resorts & Casinos did it again this year. They wanted a quick and easy way to transform an in-person prize draw barrel, that would require fewer resources and manpower. Deciding on a simple tug-of-war, the team at Gila River not only let players “vote” in exchange for entering the draw, but they were also able to display the results live - adding an additional layer to their PPV experience.
Key Takeaways:
Less Manpower, increased engagement and instant results. The Tug of War Campaign with easy “random draw” prizing was the perfect way to enhance event value and keep guests entertained while capturing valuable first-party data.
Music
In the leadup to their 2022 festival, Secret Sounds FALLS Festival wanted to spread a little holiday cheer. So they capitalized on the hype with a classic Tradable Bits spin-to-win campaign, offering winners discounted ticket prices. The campaign was simple, but the results were out of this world!
Key Takeaways:
Instant prizes/incentives and target data acquisition. Secret Sounds and FALLS Festival understand the value of building fan data year-over-year. In less than a week of the campaign going live, FALLS Festival acquired 38,000 entries, with 32,000 fans new to their database. Building their database for next year will set the festival up for more strategic marketing opportunities.
Design
Winning the award again this year, the Perth Wildcats continue to shine. For their Play of the Month campaign, they integrated their partnership into the overall design to make it more memorable for fans and keep things cohesive. As a result, the team achieved their data goals while looking visually stunning across the board.
Key Takeaways:
Clean and Bold. It’s all part of your brand image, be creative and fun with it. A robust design is recognizable, helps build partnership recognition and increases partnership value.
Best Activation Campaigns
Digital/Physical Activation
The Fremantle team wanted to provide their junior fans with a unique scavenger hunt experience encouraging them to search for some of their favourite Freo Dockers players around Optus Stadium on game day. Players' images were placed around the stadium, and fans were prompted to go and find them to collect their cards. This got fans up and moving, interacting with others and parts of the stadium they might not otherwise see.
Key Takeaways:
Tradable Bits' Scavenger Hunt is a simple way to engage fans in your stadium beyond just a digital game or contest. Mixing it up with a physical aspect is the way to go for your next activation.
Partnered Activation
The team at MLSE built their own game-tying in with their partners at Maple Leaf Foods. Fans were asked to play an interactive arcade game integrated with a Tradable Bits data capture Entry Form at the end of the game for a chance to win a pair of suite tickets to an upcoming Raptors game. As fans played, real-time data was sent to "plant trees" on a 3D arena on their website to show fans how many trees had been planted.
Key Takeaways:
Be part of the action! The arcade-style game is so much fun to play! MLSE met their goal of "one tree for every seat" in no time, with over 19K trees planted in 5 days.
Most Successful Campaigns
Short-Term
Dreamville's pre-festival sweepstakes saw plenty of traction in 2021, so they decided to bring it back for the 2022 festival. They needed to attract, organize and enrich the data they had on their fans while also using that data to convert fans in the most efficient way possible. With a strong promotion strategy in place, they got thousands of fans to sign up, which also helped them build up their email and sms databases in the process.
Key Takeaways:
So nice they did it twice. With the Tradable Bits' entry form, Dreamville has grown its fan marketing database. They collected 60% new fans and saw a 70% opt-in rate for further email and SMS communications.
Long-Term
The Swans have created a comprehensive bundle to build hype for their Finals run, with stunning campaigns and strategic fan incentives. They pulled off 24 days of engagement ranging from “spin to wins” to ‘fan-powered moments for UGC.’ In addition, they incentivized daily visits by making it clear to fans that the more you enter, the more likely you are to win a grand prize.
Key Takeaways:
A bundle of joy. It is incredible how low-lift bundles like these are while reaping massive rewards. The Sydney Swans’ Final season engagement hub is a prime example of how to ride the momentum of playoffs.
Best Campaign
Corporate Social Responsibility
NASCAR's Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award is awarded annually to a NASCAR fan who volunteers for children's causes in their community. In 2022, the NASCAR Foundation included a fan-voting portion to help decide the finalist. The campaign saw over 20,000 entries, with over 7,000 new to NASCAR's CRM.
Key Takeaways:
A captivating fan engagement doesn't always have to include prizes or special offers. As one of Tradable Bits' out-of-the-box engagement campaigns, the "Video Contest" was the perfect solution for the NASCAR Foundation to a highly shareable, easily distributable and accessible voting mechanism.
Livestream Event
As part of their ‘Team PowerSmart” initiative, BC Hydro’s community team partnered up with Tradable Bits and launched a series of monthly live-streamed events, each with a different theme and focus. During each live stream, fans were prompted to answer trivia questions to win one grand prize while engaging with other guests each time. In addition to the live stream, BC Hydro also used Tradable Bits reminder emails to keep engagement high monthly.
Key Takeaways:
Build a sense of community with your live stream while providing a space for your fans to interact. BC Hydro Livestreams are a great example of how tradable bits can help engage with more niche communities.
Best Use of Fan Data
Sports
Fans today want multiple options. Especially when it comes to things like season tickets. The TNSE team turned right to Tradable Bits to build out an embedded entry form on their website's ticketing page, which asked fans multiple qualifying questions and gave their sales team great data points to work off of when getting in contact with the fans directly. They've truly mastered the art of fan segmentation and sending the right message to the right fans at the right time.
Key Takeaways:
Simple and Highly Effective. Tradable Bits' entry forms enable you to gather data and further remarket it to fans throughout the season through email and digital advertising.
Music
When it comes to a robust fan-marketing strategy, the team at Lucky Ent. has it down-pact. For their festival 'Hello Sunshine,' Lucky Ent. ran a pre-registration campaign and made sure to have the data flow through Tradable Bits, ensuring they weren't missing any key data points.
Key Takeaways:
A tool to segment your fan data. Lucky Ent. are fearless in pushing us to the limits when uncovering fan data. With Tradable Bits, Lucky Ent. could tag and segment the fan data they used cleverly to target the right audience through digital ads, email or sms marketing.
Artists+Labels
The Canadian-based band Rare Americans teamed up with Tradable Bits just under a year ago, and they have been putting the platform to the test from the jump. They've run multiple campaigns, including in-venue activations, album pre-sale sign-ups and even a fan-art-driven t-shirt contest.
Key Takeaways:
Maximize your fan data and build regular engagements to capture more. Rare Americans know how to put their data to work. By running different campaigns, quickly build your fanbase and strategically target them.
Best Live Campaigns - In-Venue Activation
Sports
With Tradable bits' Classic Memory Match, the B.C. Lions x Save-On-Foods saw significant results this season. Run over 9 home games, the Lions collected 60% new fans, and saw a 90% opt-in rate. To get fans involved, the team pre-recorded a video of their player Sean Whyte playing the Memory Match, which they put on the jumbotron, calling on fans to beat his time. The video was followed by a QR code on the screen for fans to quickly enter.
Key Takeaways:
It's all about personalizing the in-person experience for your fans. Tradable Bits' Memory Match campaign is a classic engagement that's easy to enter, easy to play, and great for understanding who's filling the stadium.
Music
There's pre-sale, on-sale, etc., but let's not forget about the big day itself, and the opportunity for in-venue activations. Austin City Limits and Snapchat executed our AR Tower perfectly, letting fans snap fun pics with custom Snapchat filters overlaid in real-time. After getting the right shot, fans were prompted to scan a QR code allowing them to share it directly from their Snapchat account. Even better, the QR that led fans to the Snapchat App, opened the door for all the other delightful experiences that Snapchat set up as a festival sponsor - including an AR map of the festival grounds.
Key Takeaways:
It's all about crafting interactive touchpoints at the venue. The ACL x Snapchat Tower was a very well-executed and playful activation that tied in the sponsor while enhancing the on-ground experience for fans.
Best Fan-Driven Campaigns
UGC Display
For Wisconsin's 125-year celebration, they wanted fans to share their memories to help celebrate the team's storied past. So they decided to team up with Tradable Bits and host a photo entry contest where fans could submit photos. They curated this content into a UGC Stream Display in-venue that encouraged further fan participation by CTA with a QR code to drive additional entries to the Photo Contest.
Key Takeaways:
Nothing better than getting up on the jumbotron! A cherry on top is when the fans can share it further. Wisconsin Badgers took advantage of our photo contest campaign, which helped them automate both photo and data collection for their in-venue activation.
Augmented Reality
Try the Manu Ginóbili AR effect on the Spurs’ Instagram page now! The San Antonio Spurs teamed up with Tradable Bits to add an additional touchpoint to celebrate the storied career of lifetime Spurs shooting guard - Manu Ginóbili. The front camera AR filter randomly selected a moment in Manu's career for fans to identify with, and the back camera AR filter took fans on a tour of a Trophy room to celebrate all that Manu had accomplished. This was a fun, light-hearted way to let fans share their memories of the superstar's career.
Key Takeaways:
Who doesn't like fun filters/effects? So get creative and make it an unforgettable experience for your fans. Like the Spurs, this was a fun, light-hearted way to let fans share their memories of the superstar's career.
Best Social Ad Campaign
Creative
One of our exciting new ads partners from 2022, Collingwood FC, took their season membership campaigns to another level last year with paid social media campaigns across Facebook and Instagram and stellar creative and messaging.
Key Takeaways:
To sell an event, you have to make the story and experience bigger. Collingwood FC did this incredibly well by strengthening the comparison across the two teams, which helped them grow their membership base while breaking records for the season.
Best SMS Campaign
Our partners at Sixthman dove head first into the world of SMS Marketing this past year, focusing on building up their SMS opt-in database in organic ways like presale sign-ups, contests, and more. They then used SMS campaigns to drive specific messages to fans, whether it was giving them access to presales before the general public or reminding fans who hadn’t yet booked that time was running out.
Key Takeaways:
Add SMS into your marketing mix. On average Sixthman achieved an ROI of 500x, with some campaigns receiving well over 1000x ROI.