#WeAreChosen – An Interview with Everton’s Director of Media & Comms

Towards the end of each season is when the different departments within a football club have to start thinking about the following season, and asking fans to renew their season tickets.

For many it will be the usual methods of email (and snail mail) marketing, activity on social media and posters up at the ground. But few act in a creative way and even fewer make it into something a bit special.

Everton FC has showed in recent years the benefits of bringing together all the various touch points they have with fans and delivering a really good campaign that not only looks good but delivers results.

In February the club released their #WeAreChosen video, an emotive message to fans that has delivered over 65,000 views since its launch. But what more did the campaign deliver than a few views? We caught up with the clubs Director of Media & Communications, Richard Kenyon to find out.

DS: The #WeAreChosen campaign video has a very ‘brand’ feel about it, what was the thinking behind this approach to the video?

RK: We wanted to capture the ‘essence’ of what it means to be an Evertonian in the film, we know being an Evertonian isn’t confined to matchdays but part of fans everyday life. This gave us the chance to capture meaningful life events and juxtapose these with important Everton moments from both a player and fan perspective emphasising that both are equally significant.

Fans are really proud of their Club and the Club is very proud of all our fans – capturing that connection was the key.

DS: Looking past the number of views (65k), what has been the impact you’ve seen from the campaign so far?

RK: We’ve had great feedback – most importantly from our fans! I don’t think I’ve heard from a single Evertonian who hasn’t liked the film. Every fan I’ve spoken to can identify with one or more of the cast members featured within the edit.  The combination of the re-mastered Club anthem Z Cars, the cinematography and the heartfelt realness of the casts’ expressions throughout definitely struck an emotive cord with our fanbase.

The feedback from our fans has been the most important thing but it’s always good to get good feedback from others in the marketing and media world and we’ve even had feedback from other Clubs saying it’s the best they’ve seen which is really nice for the team who worked on it.

DS: It’s obviously more than a YouTube video, what other elements have been key in driving it forward?

RK: It’s an integrated campaign – so across all channels.  The campaign is all about engaging with and involving the fanbase and making them feel fundamentally part of it. From first views of the vide “That’s me that is”, to use of real fans within campaign imagery – this has been key to driving the campaign forwards and maintaining interest – what’s coming next?

DS: More than a month into what have the results been from it? and what has the feedback been like?

RK: All feedback has been really positive – We’ve had hundreds of fans send us images of their #Chosen selves wishing to be part of the creative. We plan to reveal a montage of fan imagery on large scale media in the next few weeks.   Wider football fanbase and sports/marketing industry professionals have also been complimentary

The best endorsement probably being a young lady having the campaign ‘lockup’ tattooed on her arm!

About author

Daniel McLaren
Daniel McLaren 820 posts

Dan is the Founder & CEO of Digital Sport. Can be found at sports industry events and heard every week on the Digital Sport Insider podcast. @DanielMcLaren

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