You Have to Accept Some Rule-Breaking and Turbulence in the Social Media
News Article -- January 25, 2012
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Premium, CSC's business magazine | Winter 2012 | No. 18
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Paris Saint-Germain football club has a broad base of supporters, both active and passive, quick to display their allegiance to the club but also their discontent. A very comfortable but also extremely demanding environment, according the to the club’s marketing director.
What does customer intimacy mean for a football club?
Michel Mimran: It’s difficult to explain, given that the relationship we have with our customers is so different from what other businesses are familiar with. Trying to “know your customers better to personalise your offering” doesn’t mean the same thing to a brand like ours, which generates such a passionate response. We try not to take only a purely commercial approach towards a community of roughly 3 million supporters who, to a certain extent, are part of the club, and are a more than mere customers or consumers.
Given that, what is your role?
M. M.: For all those people that want to be closer to the club, we have to provide the most up-to-date information possible, and above all and of increasing importance, the possibility to react. An exclusive and passionate relationship gives a comfort that most marketing directors do not have, but it is also accompanied by great expectations. We have to respond to the demands of the passionate supporters that fill the stadium, and who are fans on all platforms. Even if we don’t have a direct competitor as such, we’re under pressure to do well, as the customers are very demanding and closely scrutinize all our initiatives.
How do you manage that?
M. M.: Firstly, by way of what we imagine for the stadium in terms of entertainment, to create magical events for the 45,000 people present. Secondly, by way of what we do for all the fans via the various media: our website which provides all information in a very lively but non-participative manner; a weekly newsletter, a purely commercial tool, which provides promotional info and channels fans towards ticketing and merchandise; a web TV channel; a website for mobile applications; and a Facebook page. Our online efforts were recently recognized when we were awarded the “Prix Sport Numericus du Meilleur Club Numérique”, awarded to the club with the best digital offering
And how is the club with the leading digital offering using the social media?
M. M.: The social media enable us to create new relationships and respond to fans’ need to express themselves. We’re present on all the platforms supporters are on. Our Twitter account has 30,000 followers, making it the 2nd most popular club in France and 16th in Europe. On Facebook we offer exclusive content and our page was recently named the best page in the Premier League with 800,000 fans (2nd club in France, 14th in Europe) with the 2nd highest response rate among European clubs.
Which lessons can be learned from this exemplary digital offering?
M. M.: Our experience is quite specific as the social media extend and prolong that which takes place in the stadium: when not everything is under control, when the rules are broken or when there’s a lot of criticism... To get as much out of it as we do, brands that are less “hot” need to accept this element of turbulence and be somewhat more self-deprecating. But these are things which businesses usually have a hard time tolerating.
Focus
The sport numericus prize
Last November, PSG was awarded the Sport Numericus Prize for Best Digital Club. At a time when the digital revolution is driving deep changes in sports development and consumer experience, this prize rewards the club’s constant media evolution, and highlights, according to Michel Mimran, Marketing Director, “that the PSG is far ahead of the other clubs.”
Biography
Michel Mimran, who graduated from the Paris-based business school ESSEC, has held Marketing Director positions for Kodak (93-98), Cryo (98-2002), and Club-Internet (2003-2006). After launching the Darty Box, he served as Marketing Director for Lagardère Active (youth TV channels), before becoming PSG Marketing Director in January 2009.