Every week we’re talking about Manchester City in some sense, it seems. From their robotics partnership to their VR adventures. Even their new website and app is turning heads.

They’re a club investing heavily in digital, and they’ve been at the forefront of digital and social media for years – when it comes to football clubs least.

And this week, City have given us yet another reason to talk about their digital output with another novel way to engage their fans with the club. This time, they’ve launched an iOS app to give fans stickers the can use on their iPhones and iPads.

Check out our new stickers on App store for IOS users – https://t.co/hwRUCnAzGG …
Hope you like them!@ManCity #ManCityDigital pic.twitter.com/STvpmU3RAC

— Man City Digital (@ManCityDigital) October 12, 2016

Ok, so it might be a little bit gimmicky, but don’t sports fans love a gimmick now and again? It’s just another way to engage with your audience and to make sure your brand and your badge are seen by as many people as possible.

In many ways, football clubs are just like other brands, even if fans don’t think of themselves as ‘customers’ (and even if it would be a terrible mistake for a club to treat them as such), football fans share many similarities with ‘customers’ of other brands. And although it’s unlikely fans will ‘switch to another brand’, clubs do still need to engage with their fans as much as they can.

The stickers idea, then, might be gimmicky, but it does give the club a presence in conversations amongst fans in places where Manchester City’s digital reach doesn’t extend. Until now!