Sky Bet, Sky Sports and Sky Media

The Football Social Shows How TV,
Digital and Social Are Better Together

The Football Social Shows
How TV,Digital
and Social Are Better Together

When Sky Media, Sky Sports and Diagonal View came to us with this piece of creative thinking we were excited to be part of something innovative. As a brand we’re always exploring new ways to reach our target market and this opportunity, grounded in research, provided us with a fresh idea, access to new talent and audiences, meaningful integration and high levels of reach. The results show that this has only improved our brand’s perception in the market, and we are excited to evolve in to year two.

Tom Hill, Senior Marketing Manager at Sky Betting & Gaming

Sky Bet, Sky Sports and Sky Media

The Football Social Shows How TV, Digital and Social Are Better Together

Fans have always loved to talk about football, but the rise of social media has taken the conversation to the next level. Sky Media united the worlds of TV, digital and social media with a brand-new immersive football viewing experience – The Football Social. In just 10 months, it became one of the most popular strands on Sky’s social media platforms.

+
0
%
increase in viewers who would go on to place a bet via Sky Bet
+
0
%
increase in unprompted awareness of Sky Bet
+
0
%
increase in Positive emotional engagement with Sky Bet

Insight

Fans don’t just watch football, it’s massive social currency

Football viewing is changing. Sky Sports’ audience has evolved from 10.8m monthly viewers on TV to 19.2m fans following our TV and digital channels. 80% of Sky Sports viewers use their phones when they’re watching TV and, with millennial fans, football has become the second-highest performing programming on YouTube.

Now people don’t just talk about football in the pub, they use social media to celebrate the highs and rant about the lows of the game with fellow fans, as the action happens.

The goalposts have moved, with both social media and TV playing an important part in millennial’s lifestyles. Therefore, we needed an idea that would embrace the merit and use of both, transcend different platforms and take our football coverage into a higher league.

Idea

Unite the worlds of TV and social media, creating an immersive branded content viewing experience for fans and brands

With unrivalled access to footballing content and talent across TV and social (through the acquisition of social-viewing powerhouse Diagonal View), we developed the biggest YouTube football watch-along to date. A new, immersive experience that would allow fans to join their favourite football pundits in a live conversation, alongside the live linear action.

We wanted to give a brand the opportunity to really engage with football fans, and with odds and outcomes being so integral to the football conversation, we had the perfect format to develop with a forward thinking, innovative brand – step forward Sky Bet.

Activation

We invited a revered panel of pundits from the world of football (Andy Cole, Emilie Heskey, Luis Garcia), entertainment (Alex Brooker) and social media (Josh Denzel, JaackMaate) to participate in a panel show that discussed every game in real time across the 33-week football season: The Football Social.

The show was aired live on YouTube, using the comments section and live social media feeds to enable fans to watch and talk about the game. As the game happened, the panel selected fans’ commentary, and made it part of their conversation, giving wannabe millennial pundits their moment of fame. With our unrivalled access to Premier League matches, The Football Social also showed exclusive pre-game and post-whistle footage, like the lifting of the Premier League trophy.

But we didn’t stop there. Working with our brand partner, Sky Bet – we used our social feed to direct viewers to an online survey. With semantic analysis technology we could implicitly interpret fans’ emotions to the game and Sky Bet’s advertising, bringing the brand even closer to the viewers. The technology could decipher slang, acronyms, misspellings, and subtle nuances to ensure we got honest, unprompted, emotional responses; ultimately making the conversation between pundits around odds more natural, as you would down the pub with your mates. We could then change our tactics mid-game rather than waiting for the post-match analysis, updating ad formats and building in branded, on screen predictions that lined up with the panel’s chat.

Results

The biggest YouTube football show EVER and a golden goal for Sky Bet, which has led to partnership renewal for the 2019-20 football season.

Engagement

  • In one season, The Football Social received 19m views across all its social media platforms.
  • The stream for the second leg of Liverpool v Barcelona went on to be YouTube’s highest football watch-along ever, with a peak audience of 51k and a combined 4m views across Soccer AM and Football Daily’s social platforms.
  • Since its renewal there has been a total 139% increase in views YoY and a 43% increase in social views.

Awareness

  • Sky Bet’s metrics shot up across the board with unprompted awareness increasing by 35%; positive emotional engagement up by 33%; consideration soaring to 32% and an overall 10% increase in viewers who would go on to place a bet.

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