5 of the Best Fan Engagement Campaigns We’ve Seen

Need inspiration for your next marketing campaign? This is the article for you! Whether you’re a fan of inbound digital marketing techniques or flagship in-person activations (who doesn’t love a bit of pizzazz?), we’re breaking down some of the best fan engagement campaigns we’ve seen around. 

Complete with engagement campaign examples from beloved brands, you’ll learn what makes for great customer interactions and why. Read on to learn more or check out the full research in our whitepaper, Navigating the Digital Playfield: Understanding Engagement and Consumer Expectations.

What is an engagement campaign?

‘Engagement’ can have different meanings depending on what platform or strategy you use to reach out to customers. In general, the idea is to interact and excite people based on who they are/what they do and towards a specific goal. 

This is often towards making a purchase or subscribing for more information, but it can also simply be about maintaining a relationship with existing customers in what’s known as remarketing. Since engagement campaigns don’t have to be perfectly targeted, there’s often some overlap of who you’re engaging with between new and existing customers. As such, simple engagement campaigns can re-use many of the same assets for new and existing customers.

But what exactly makes for a good engagement campaign, and why? You can read more in our dedicated article, The Ultimate Guide to Fan Loyalty & Fan Engagement. Otherwise, here’s a brief list of inspiration you can use:

5 of the top fan engagement campaign examples

1. Fortnite OG

Debuting in early November 2023, Fortnite OG is one of the best fan engagement campaigns around. In offering long-time players the ultimate nostalgia trip and newcomers a new chance to jump on the bandwagon, Fortnite OG revisits the game’s very own history. 

Namely, by exploring each phase of the Battle Royale’s past, starting with Chapter 1, Season 5. This season sees the Battle Royal giant re-releasing beloved game items, weapons, and more, allowing fans to re-experience the game’s five-year evolution in just a few weeks.

Although the campaign is ongoing, with new seasons planned very soon, it has been one of the game’s most successful to date. More than 44 million players joined on the first day of the competition, reigniting fans’ early love of the game and offering a shared player experience.

2. FIFA World on Roblox

Staying with gaming examples a little longer, another great example of fan engagement is FIFA World on Roblox. Unveiled ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, FIFA World is a free-to-play virtual environment that celebrates the power and history of football. Fans can socialise, earn rewards, collect exclusive items and play football-themed events.

Recently, FIFA expanded the engagement campaign for the 2023 Women’s World Cup and has further engagement campaigns planned on Roblox as part of the multi-year partnership. The engagement campaign on Roblox has become wildly successful, with over 17.5 million visits and an 83% community rating from fans, thanks to its novelty and well-timed release. Given its wild success, make sure to keep tabs on this campaign and its future releases in the years to come.

3. Red Bull Racing’s Paddock Club

Red Bull is no stranger to eye-catching fan engagement campaigns, with previous feats including the Red Bull Stratos campaign: a supersonic free-fall spectacle from 128 thousand feet high. You know, normal brand activities…! 

However, its Paddock Club is something different. The Paddock Club is a completely free-to-enter loyalty club and hospitality provider that allows fans to access unique experiences and rewards.

The secret to its success lies in its simplicity. Fans can earn points simply by engaging with Formula 1 content, which can then be traded for merchandise, autographed items, VIP experiences and more. Best of all, fan points reset each calendar year. While this may seem counter-intuitive, it means whale-like point collectors don’t get to hoard all the rewards. Instead, everyone gets a chance to win Paddock Club offers. F1 recently reported its revenues grew to $2.5 billion amid record fan attendance, thanks in part to the Paddock Club.

4. Arsenal Match Predictor

Another one of the best fan engagement campaigns around is Arsenal FC’s Match Predictor. Fans submit their predictions for each match, including the final score, the first goalscorer  and the time of scoring. Lucky fans then have the chance to win signed merchandise each month or a VIP trip at the end of the season.

As with Red Bull’s campaign, its success is its simplicity. Given that fans already have these conversations among themselves, the Match Predictor gives Arsenal FC a way to engage and reward its most loyal (and knowledgeable!) fans. As a by-product, Arsenal FC also gets to collect data on highly engaged fans and use the information in subsequent fan engagement campaigns, providing long-term returns.

5. Premier League

Finally - another football-themed fan engagement campaign example - is our work with the Premier League. Premier League away days have suffered a 10% attendance decline over five years due to a lack of information on travel routes, hospitality, parking, and more.

We worked with the League to redesign and relaunch its Away Days app, engaging fans with the information they need to make the best of their days out. 

The project followed the Premier League Away Supporters Initiative, which saw each club invest £200,000 per season to make the matchday experience better for travelling fans. After launch, the app received over 200 thousand downloads across iOS and Android devices, with more than 2 million app sessions across the 2014-15 season. As a result, we managed to empower fan away days and make sure they could show their support when their team needed it most.

Learn more about some of the best fan engagement campaigns in our latest Whitepaper

We’ve collated industry insights from 1,000 British football fans as well as club leaders and experts in our latest Whitepaper.

In it, we do in-depth on modern consumer expectations for fan engagement in sports and what club leaders can do in response. You’ll learn about the pain points and opportunities that lie ahead and see our strategic recommendations on potential next steps.

Interested? Get your free copy now!