Europcar, Sports at SMG & Snack Media partnership redefining Premier League team sponsorship

When Europcar signed a deal becoming Arsenal FC’s official car and van rental partner, the challenges they faced would be similar to the challenges that any other brand would face when entering a space they were previously foreign to – reaching a network of sites in that particular field and establishing a voice that would give them credibility in the industry.

Enter Snack Media, fan engagement specialists based in North London who were appointed by SPORTS at SMG to digitally activate the sponsorship. With an already sure footing in the football industry through their 200 fan-focused sports sites, Europcar was able to immediately reach an audience of over 20 million unique visitors each month.

With their unique and fan oriented voice, tried and tested methods of creating interesting and relevant content, real-time marketing, Snack Media was able to digitally project Europcar’s involvement with Arsenal FC through its social media channels and its online presence.

This manifested in activations such as branded live match content streams during Arsenal fixtures throughout the season on their flagship football website before being syndicated across the rest of the appropriate sites in their network.

europcar

Using their expertise in fan-engagement, Snack Media also used @EuropcarSport Twitter handle on match days in which they created and published real-time branded commentary – a method that is becoming increasingly popular however, one that very few teams in the Premier League are currently employing.

6th gear

The campaign also saw the rise of eye-catching social media campaigns that Snack Media developed on behalf of Europcar which were directly advertised across Arsenal Football Club’s following. In addition, their presence at the live match days at Emirates Stadium was increased as content capturing teams allowed fans to directly contribute to the live feeds.

What was an aspect that stood out in Europcar’s partnership with Snack Media (and which serves as a reminder to other team sponsors) is Snack’s exploration of the sponsorship rights available to the rental company. These rights enabled Snack to run competitions and provide behind-the-scenes experiences to Arsenal FC fans.

This was seen in the running of the “Europcar Cup” which invited winners of a competition to play a game of five a side on the hallowed turf of Emirates Stadium as well as the Europcar Fan Of The Season competition.

Ernie

The campaign produced some rather impressive statistics including;

  •  12.6m fan engagement minutes on branded live match content streams
  • campaigns throughout the course of the season that encouraged participation on specific campaign hashtags, which reached 17.2m Twitter accounts
  • Arsenal-specific content that was published on @EuropcarSport and retweeted 10,826 times over the season
  • over 50m display impressions delivered

The partnership that has proven to be very fruitful to date will be back again this year and might serve a reminder to other clubs that with the rapid evolution of technology, traditional broadcasts are losing traction thanks to the increasing nous of digital sports agencies.

About author

Matt Tewhatu
Matt Tewhatu 155 posts

Matt is the editor of Digital Sport and Chief of Snack Media's rugby division and has a journalistic background both here in UK, Australia and in his native New Zealand. Follow him on Twitter @mtewhatu

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