Perform Media Launches Digital Football Agency

08 Jun 2016 | tshego

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Perform Media, a division of Perform Group, has announced the launch of new digital football agency, Goal Studios.

Born out of Goal.com, the football media brand, Goal Studios is a fully resourced agency that benefits from Perform’s infrastructure and sports content expertise.

According to the agency, the launch has been driven by the emergence of a new breed of football fan who want a different type of content and an accompanying demand from global football sponsors, rights holders and their agencies to develop insight-powered activations that communicate with them.

Goal Studios is powered by Perform’s portfolio of sports media brands, including Goal.com and ePlayer that provide the agency with access to millions of fans.

Stefano D’Anna, managing director of Goal Studios, commented: “As a media owner, we’ve had the benefit of seeing the success or failure of a great many football activations. Some are brilliant and nothing we could offer would improve them. But unfortunately too many fall short for the simple reason that they’re based on anecdotal or non-existent understanding of how fans actually engage with content. That’s where we can help.”

UEFA is partnering with Goal Studios to develop the promotional campaigns for UEFA EURO 2016 and UEFA Europa League.

“We very much see ourselves as complementary to existing agency set-ups. We are digital football experts. We’ve been engaging fans through digital media for over 10 years so we understand how quickly fan behaviour changes. We have to constantly evolve our own approach to keep up and now we’re offering that insight to brands, agencies and rights-holders.”

Hugh Sleight, director of football strategy, and former FourFourTwo editor and brand director added: “Fan insight underpins our proposition. We’re incredibly fortunate as an agency to have access to over 125 million fans all over the world and to be able to track in real-time the changing nature of their engagement with the game. Our starting point for any project is separating fact from fiction: what do fans really want? The answer often isn’t what brands think and that puts us in an unrivalled position to help them connect more effectively with fans.”

Damian Smyth joins as global head of planning and activation from TBWA/G1 where he was global brand leader responsible for Nissan’s sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League. The agency also incorporates specialists from Opta, the sports data provider, and Perform Group’s global video production teams.