Marseille and adidas let fans pick Kit design to celebrate reaching 1m Facebook fans

Introducing a new author on the site; Sean Walsh is passionate about social media and football, works in digital marketing and runs his own blog looking into his favorite subject.  He’ll also be contributing to UKSN on a regular basis as we continue to look for new insights into Sport and Social Media.  here he looks beyond our shores to a great example of engaging with fans by Ligue 1 club Marseille…


The French Ligue 1 club promised their fans a special surprise if they could hit 1,000,000 Facebook likes on their official page. The Marseillais faithful did their job and as a reward for their loyalty the club revealed that they would let the fans pick the 2011-2012 kit.

For the past week, fans have been logging on to the adidas led – miteam.com website to fully customise their dream Marseille jerseys. Throughout, a select panel of Marseille and adidas officials have acted as a jury to select the best three designs of the day, and on the 21st March, fans will be able to vote on their favourite.

This is a brilliant example of not only motivating fans to follow official club channels, but a fantastic piece of engagement that lets fans get involved with the decision-making processes of the club. For the past number of years football clubs and manufacturers have seen their designs leaked online to websites like FootballShirtCulture.com, often sparking debate among fans. This is a step forward in how clubs should deal with prospective shirt designs and ensure that fan opinion is taken into account.

Although the miteam.com website doesn’t allow full customisation, it does allow fans to pick the colours and collar style (the results of which should be interesting since there has always been a bit of a stylistic divide between fans regarding having a collar or not). Whilst this is an excellent bit of social media, it is also a very shrewd piece of marketing. Fans can have their say and perhaps feel more empowered to go out and buy the shirt. It breaks down that stereotypical divide of the corporate fat-cat club and the hard-working loyal fan. Hopefully the UK takes note and we see a similar display of innovation.

PS. As the photo shows, I can see why the fans would want to design their own shirts!

 

About author

Sean Walsh
Sean Walsh 7 posts

Born in Yorkshire, but mongrel accent. 22. Work as digital marketer. Blog about Football Social Media at digital-football.com & @UKSportsNetwork. Follow on twitter.com/walshybhoy

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