Getting Inside the Head of Europe’s Football Fans
The year was 2012, and Sharp was having a difficult time in Europe. Once a giant of Japanese electronics, the brand was struggling to stay relevant in a market that had become significantly less interested in owning a very good television.
Then, at the last minute, Sharp signed on as a major sponsor of the European Football Championship. This was exciting news for everyone at the agency, especially those who had spent the last six months working on a B2B photocopier brief.
Once the excitement wore off, though, a fairly obvious problem emerged. Sharp did not really feel like a football brand. Compared with the tournament’s more established, big-money partners, the brand was very much the outsider.
Yes, it had once appeared on some iconic Ferguson-era Manchester United shirts. But beyond that, Sharp had about as much right to stride confidently onto a football pitch as my mum.
Sorry, Mum. That was a cheap shot.
If we wanted the sponsorship to amount to anything more than another logo on a hoarding, we needed to find a role Sharp could genuinely own in the competition. So, while everyone else focused on the 320 players, we turned our attention to the 350 million fans.
Sharp FanLabs was the largest-ever study of football supporters. Not just another piece of pseudo-scientific marketing with a man in a white coat and a suspiciously convenient conclusion. We partnered with leading research and technology companies to make the study as rigorous as possible. Because football fandom is arguably every bit as complicated as football itself.
The game is analysed endlessly. Passes completed. Distance covered. Possession percentages. Expected goals. But relatively little attention is paid to the people losing their minds in the stands, the pub, the fan zone or their own living room. Which felt like an oversight.
A major tournament can reduce an entire country to a single emotional state. Hopeful. Delusional. Furious. Briefly convinced that this time will be different. Sometimes all within 90 minutes.
So we set out to study the national mood of football fans across 30 European markets, both before and during the tournament.
Were Dutch supporters really the most exuberant? Were German fans as calm and rational as advertised? What did English fans truly believe? Who was mainly there for the vibes?
We wanted to find out.
The campaign ran for three months and combined large-scale research, live activations and real-time content across Europe.
First, we worked with psychology researchers to create a custom app that profiled fans through detailed tests and daily questions. We measured things like optimism, pride and commitment, then used the results to build a national picture of each fanbase.
Participants were also placed into one of eight fan archetypes, allowing them to compare themselves with friends, fellow supporters and fans across the continent.
That was just the groundwork. From there, things got considerably more elaborate.
We created mobile FanLabs that travelled across Europe showing matches on a 60-inch Sharp television. But that wasn’t the most impressive tech onboard. Inside, fans wore brainwave headsets and biometric sensors while we monitored their physical and emotional responses throughout the match.
How nervous were they before kick-off? Who watched most intensely? Who never stopped believing? And who seemed suspiciously relaxed about the whole thing?
All of this gave us a huge amount of data to work with.
A dedicated editorial team analysed the results each day, turning the most interesting findings into stories, social content and real-time advertising.
The data also powered local media partnerships across 30 markets. In the UK, Sharp FanLabs sponsored a pre-tournament supplement in The Sunday Telegraph and a daily segment on TalkSport, where we shared the latest findings as the competition unfolded.
Better still, the research began generating its own momentum.
Media outlets across Europe picked up the results, with FanLabs data appearing in more than 50 publications, including Goal.com and La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Sharp may have entered the tournament as a football outsider. But by the end, it had got inside everyone’s head.
In an age when every on-field kick is already being analysed, Sharp FanLabs found a completely unique way to connect with football fans.
Despite being new to the game, Sharp was able to outplay the other sponsors at Euro 2012. In total, over 3 million fans across Europe took part in the study, while over 300 million fans engaged with our result.
