We have been working very hard over the last 2 years, in between our clients work, to develop our ‘next generation’ communications analysis model and to update our strategic thinking and M&E processes. Since that’s been done it felt like a fresh new website would be the right place to start talking about them and so here it is!

Launch date….It’s great to be welcoming visitors to our new website. We have been working very hard over the last 2 years, in between our clients work, to develop our ‘next generation’ communications analysis model and to update our strategic thinking and M&E processes. Since that’s been done it felt like a fresh new website would be the right place to start talking about them and so here it is!

Visitors may spot a frequent reference to something we have dubbed ‘Fanship’- it’s one of the 4 key pillars underpinning Associative Marketing communications analysis and part of our new 4Sight Model. Fanship is effectively a segmentation tool for associative marketing audiences that recognises the differing emotional and practical relationships that people have with famous or even not so famous properties. No longer can marketers afford to lump everyone together as Fans and assume they all digest communications related to a property in the same way – they don’t!

To illustrate the differences and to highlight the commercial implications for both sponsors and clubs we are about to conduct our first syndicated survey into Fanship groups’ behaviour with regard to English Premier League Clubs – we expect the results to be fascinating.

Similarly, with Rugby World Cup recently finished and London 2012 just around the corner it will be very interesting to see how sponsors categorise the audiences for such events. How many Fans will the industry say watched the RWC – Millions of course but in reality there were none. RWC itself had no Fans, only large swathes of ‘Interested’ people who were themselves Fans of the National teams that were playing! Semantics I hear you cry……….well when you consider that ‘Fans’ are significantly more likely than ‘Interested’ people to engage with communications regarding a property they follow then perhaps not.

Don’t believe me? OK – well just take a minute and without cheating, try and write down the sponsors of RWC (There are 5 worldwide partners and 5 official sponsors). I’ll bet you conclude you were Interested but not a Fan!