'The pandemic has prompted a wave of creativity across the sports industry'
On the second last day at WFS Live, a panel analysed the demand from Asian football fans for new and creative engagement strategies.
Asian football fans are some of the most passionate and loyal on the planet, a fact not lost on many major European clubs who conduct big money-spinning pre-season tours to the likes of China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia along with securing many strategic alliances with the regions leading brands.
In the current covid-19 climate and with major restrictions surrounding global travel, today's panel of experts hailing from the likes of the LaLiga office representing the South East Asia region and the Malaysian Football League explored ways where Asian fans could continue to engage with their favourite football clubs not just on a local level but from Europe and beyond.
MFL 'we miss football' campaign
Winnie Chan (Football Malaysia) explained how her organisation set about unifying the football community on a local level by using 'zoom' technology to ensure players and fans stayed in touch. They created five episodes and got external sponsors involved with the series driving a spike via their social media platforms with the MFL Instagram seeing a in increment of 58% with a staggering 723% audience increase across the official YouTube platform.
Simon Li (LaLiga Asia) focused on the importance of having the likes of Inui, Kubo and Wu Lei playing at LaLiga clubs to drive interaction but was keen to highlight that not having a big name Asian player was not an obstacle in the creative process pointing to the Leganes campaign conducted in the Philippines to launch the 'Cucumber Growers' new season ticket campaign for the 2019/20 season. He concluded admitting that the pandemic has seen a re-think between LaLiga and regional partners with a view to making the relationship be more than just 90 minutes of match action.
Facebook's Kike Levy was anxious to focus on the incredible flow of creativity across the sport industry prompted by the covid-19 pandemic and pointed to the recent FC Barcelona Facebook Q&A sessions with players and famous fans of the club generating massive audience.