Brief
The club required a market-leading platform which catered for the needs of the modern supporter, creating new marketing opportunities whilst acting as the natural destination for fans in a highly competitive market against general sports media and football fan websites.
Results
Rippleffect initially launched the Everton FC site in 2003 and has continued to develop and add to the site since then, continually adding new features to establish the club as one of the most innovative in the Premier League. This has included developing vodcasts and podcasts, which became the most downloaded sports podcast on iTunes, allowing fans to post their comments and photographs via Twitter and Flickr during matchdays and developing an official Facebook application which brings match and ticketing information to over 17,000 supporters.
To improve data collection, Rippleffect developed ‘Your Everton’; over 10,000 supporters have registered to create their own profile, message their friends, post their own comments and upload their own content. Other features have included an interactive desktop character based on David Moyes to drive traffic, creating improved sponsorship and commercial opportunities with brands such as Sky and Mercedes-Benz using viral communication and online games and including Chinese and Thai content to cater for international fans. These steps helped to increase online ticket sales by 320% in 12 months, and increased the average time spent by each supporter on evertonfc.com by 40% over the 2008-09 season.
