Throughout the 2016 NFL season, the Jacksonville Jaguars are taking branded content one step further as it looks to find additional ways to engage fans and also, capture insightful data about attendees at EverBank Field.
Last week, the Jaguars doubled down on its commitment to gamification as a lead marketing strategy, re-introducing JaguarsArcade.com to its fan base after launching the first-ever team video game (‘Duval Dash’) in 2015.
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According to Steve Ziff, Vice President of Marketing and Digital Media, the team collaborated with current sponsor Anheuser-Busch/Bud Light around a branded pinball video game dubbed “Bud Light presents River City Rollers,” which is accessible via desktop or the Jaguars’ team app.
“We wanted to keep it as a native idea but then tie in a brand that made sense,” Ziff said. “We wanted fun, snackable, shareable pieces of mobile content.”
As he explained, fans can receive free team GIF files based on in-game achievements with “River City Rollers.” In addition, individuals can redeem a free co-branded Bud Light and Jaguars koozie in the online team shop powered by Fanatics. With the marketing integrations, all three parties benefited from the data capture, a constant point of emphasis for Ziff and the Jaguars as the team better understands its fans.
Following a soft launch on Nov. 13 with in-game activation on the team’s jumobtron and some social mentions, the Jaguars will continue leveraging social media to drive gaming use while also incorporating a media buy into the promotion.
“We’re at the point where we want to get some traction behind and blow some air into this and see how high the balloon can lift,” Ziff said, adding that the game had 750 plays on day one. “… The old adage was content was king. It’s now, native content is king. We’re taking it a step further. If it’s not integrated in a native environment, it’s less important to people.
“For us, we moved into this format that, if we’re going to make branded content as the Jaguars and we’re going to sell that branded content to people, we only want to sell it in ways that are native to our audience. We really believe in the new model of right content for the right audience through the right distribution channels will lead us to the right opportunities.”
