Heading into the 2017 season, the NFL made a concentrated effort to better understand its data and its audience. It turned to data governance and Adobe Audience Manager.
Whether you're a fan of the New England Patriots or the Philadelphia Eagles -- or only watch football to monitor your fantasy team -- the NFL wants to find you.
Unlike other industries, customers of professional sports leagues are much more active in their fandom and interaction with the brand. While consumers may look for a new pair of shoes once theirs get worn down, sports fans are actively looking for new ways to showcase their fandom, and the NFL is hoping to capitalize on that information and implement a data-driven marketing strategy to give its customers the personalized experience they expect in 2018.
"We're hoping to better understand customers that we advertise [to] and really do a personalized message for our users," said Aaron Jones, director of fan-centric marketing for the NFL. Jones spoke at a session on the first day of the Adobe Summit about how to use Adobe DMP tools, like Audience Manager and Adobe Analytics, to implement a data-driven marketing strategy.
We're hoping to better understand customers that we advertise [to] and really do a personalized message for our users.
Aaron Jonesdirector of fan-centric marketing, NFL
Jones outlined how the league has licensed Audience Manager since 2014, but it wasn't until heading into the 2017 NFL season that Jones and the league began to try and personalize the results of its data collection to advertise to individual fan bases.
"We committed to the solution to see what kind of value we could quantify," Jones said.
The results were immediate that same season, Jones explained to the session audience. By analyzing the data fed through the Adobe DMP tools, the league and its partners had a clearer vision of how to market to specific consumers with their favorite players or teams rather than marketing just with the league's shield.
To hear more about how Jones and the NFL use Adobe DMP tools to implement a data-driven marketing strategy, listen to the latest episode of the Pipeline podcast.
