Swyft Media recently announced the launch of a series of iMessage apps in conjunction with the release of Apple’s iOS 10. The launch includes close to 100 digital sticker and emoji packs in iMessage for brands such as the Baltimore Ravens, Dallas Mavericks, New York Rangers, Clemson, the University of Florida, Florida State, Virginia Tech, UCLA and the University of Utah.
“Really all that Swyft and the mobile engagement platform is about is giving the sports team or brand a way to connect with users on mobile in a way that’s never been done before,” said Evan Wray, Swyft’s co-founder and vice president.
The Ravens became the first NFL team to offer custom branded content with their three iMessage apps in partnership with Swyft.
“Being among the first to provide our content to fans through iMessage gives us a new and unique method through which they can interact with their favorite team,” Dave Lang, the Ravens’ director of digital media, said in a statement.
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With the mobile engagement platform, not only will teams be able to push branded content, but also they will also be able to track and analyze how users are engaging. If fans were prone to using a certain emoji more than others, the team would be able to track that.
For example, Swyft works with the Ravens to gain a valuable insight for their brand. The assumption would be that the sticker being used most by fans would be the team logo, but instead they found that a large grouping of fans had been using a purple crab. The crab was among the top two images being used by Ravens fans in Maryland.
“It was a really interesting marketing insight that the Ravens were able to gather,” Wray said. “They’re also using the purple crab that we never considered bringing into our content.”
Along with tracking the exact content users are sharing most, the platform also collects general usage metrics such as where people are using content and what time of day they’re using it. This makes it easy for the Ravens to realize they have a mass of engaged fans on Sundays around kickoff time.
The iMessage platform on iOS 10 provides Swyft a global platform to reach millions of consumers with branded content. Not only does it help to reach more users, but it does so in a way that is non-intrusive for consumers.
“If you look at where (especially fans 35 and younger) are spending their time, it’s in these messaging apps,” Wray said. “But for sports teams specifically, it’s been difficult to reach users in a meaningful way in those environments; it’s either annoying or intrusive.”
Given the rising use of emojis and stickers in mobile messaging apps, the content distribution process for brands has become less forced and more natural. Wray described exactly what Swyft’s new platform aims to do, saying, “We exist to make it seamless to deploy across all these platforms.”