We interviewed An Dang Duy, the Chief Information Officer at World Athletics. He leads a technology team responsible for the management of the competition results technology workflow, data management, and software that provide access to the sport for millions of people around the world.
1. What is the World Athletics digital strategy?
Our digital strategy is based on two main pillars:
- The creation of the most enjoyable and relevant Fan digital journey through a better understanding of individual needs and preferences, which will enable us to construct the best possible value propositions in terms of content and services offered. We aim to personalize the user experience in offering relevant editorial, event, and activation recommendations as well as interaction channels that meet the user’s profile. These marketing journeys should lead to higher engagement and consumption scores as well as increased participation, ticketing, and by-products purchasing.
- The modernization of our core sport product by the introduction and presentation of new Athlete performance data which can help tell the stories behind great athletics achievements.
2. How do you approach the data aspect of the fan?
Rather than cursing about GDPR, embracing it gives us the opportunity to build a 360 view of Fan data enabling users to take control of what they decide to share with us and enables us to build tailored conversations. This has led us to start linking up data, which was sitting in different places or collected on an ad hoc basis making it short-lived and possibly duplicated. Work is still in progress, but we now have a much more methodological approach of collecting structured data and leveraging it for future activation and custom fan journeys.
3. When considering data for fans, what investments will you prioritize?
We are prioritizing what would help us acquire new fans converting touchpoints in known users. Delivering on the promise of a better experience with Athletics is paramount for people to accept to share their details. We are currently working on campaigns, different content types, and how they are channeled through in our digital ecosystem to trigger and fuel our interactions with Fans.
Athletics by nature has a very broad appeal and can speak to health-conscious individuals interested in material and events promoting an active lifestyle as well as hardcore fans interested in one or several of our many disciplines revolving around running, jumping, and throwing. This is the reason why data is so important to deliver the right experience and path which will lead to more participation.
We are working to achieve timely and relevant conversations with Fans either in and around events providing local and targeted information/activation or with Fans watching our sport by providing a companion screen, which will support the storytelling through in-context and personalized editorial and performance data explanations.
Building a solution that can scale up to millions of connexions at a reasonable cost has also been very much a focus. Many of the license models on the market are made for industries where new contacts lead to immediate new revenue. Fan acquisition can be monetized eventually but this is quite a different ROI cycle.
4. Do you think about digital as a potential revenue generator?
There are long term and shorter-term opportunities for generating revenue from digital opportunities.
From a tactical point of view, digital channels must be part of your marketing mix for successful ticketing, participation, and event-related purchasing programs (like travel programs and Event merchandise).
There is also an opportunity to create new Athlete performance data services for broadcasters who are trying to enhance the viewing experience whether through additional data-driven TV content, smarter OTT services, or a broadcast second screen. Professionals involved in the sport, like coaches, are also interested in leveraging new elite athlete performance/tracking data.
More strategically, sponsors/advertisers are becoming less interested purely in audience numbers and they would like to understand how viewing numbers can be translated into fan segments of interest to them and how those segments can be activated to meet their brand/sales objectives. The investment in a first-party data warehouse / DMP will eventually pay off.
Finally, I believe that digital is reshaping and modernizing how Fans enjoy sport, and ignoring this can be fatal in a world where an increasing number of entertainment products are competing for our attention.
5. How are your commercial partners engaging with you on your digital strategy?
Our long-term timing partner, Seiko, has been key in developing technologies for athlete race tracking and beyond. We are excited about the new performance angles we will be able to exploit from 2021. We have been discussing new and innovative ideas with them, which can serve both sponsorship purposes as well as enhance our TV and digital product.
We are also in active discussions with potential new tech-oriented partners and the conversations have been around how their know-how can be showcased in a unique way through our sport and how success can be measured.