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| Fenerbahce, Efes, Paris win Devotion Marketing Awards |
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Euroleague Basketball clubs were quite busy and creative throughout the past season with special initiatives to engage their fans and larger communities in important ways.
Three of their most impactful campaigns were highlighted during the Euroleague Clubs Business Meeting on Tuesday with the announcement of the Devotion Marketing Awards.
To become eligible for the awards, clubs were invited to present a marketing initiatives they had carried out in areas such as digital strategy, sponsorship activation, brand development and game presentation, among others.
Gold Award winner: Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul
Fenerbahce made off with the top prize thanks to a series of efforts to improve the game-day and arena experience for fans while increasing ticket sales and creating a new revenue source for the future.
Those efforts included the opening of Turkiye's first basketball museum, dedicated to the club's men's and women's teams, which has already attracted nearly 30,000 visitors.
Fenerbahce also introduced its first-ever official mascot, the "Yellow Canary", to great fan acceptance. The mascot has 50,000-plus social media followers and up to 2 million views of certain videos.
At Ulker Sports and Event Hall, the club raised ticketing revenue by 70% in part by creating new courtside seats near the team benches and creating a "Kid Club" that hosted more than 5,000 children this season.
Fenerbahce also filled its EuroLeague home games with a variety of colorful shows, introducing closed-area "flame" and "co2" technologies for the first time in Turkiye. .
Silver Award winner: Anadolu Efes Istanbul
Efes, last season's winner, came in second place this time for its efforts to find homes for the countless domestic pets, farm animals and strays displaced by the devastating earthquakes that struck southern and central Turkiye on February 6 of this year.
In what is surely a first, Efes called attention to their plight by bringing some of the surviving dogs to a VIP lounge at Sinan Erdem Sports Hall during a EuroLeague game by collaborating with partner Pet Taxi to safely and comfortably transport the traumatized animals from across the country.
Efes general manager Alper Yilmaz adopted a dog himself while TV celebrities and Social Media influencers supported the project by going to the arena with their own dogs. More than 200 news articles were published in the media about the project, reaching approximately 4 million people, while 10% of the fans at the game registered with Efes partner Pawder, an animal-friendly app, to adopt a surviving dog.
Bronze Award winner: Paris Basketball
A newcomer to the EuroCup this season, Paris Basketball, took the third prize with a unique initiative, playing one of its games at the famous Philippe Chatrier court at Roland Garros, home of the French Open tennis grand slam tournament. Organization of the event took 10 months to cover all the different technical and operational challenges, which the Paris club managed in-house with 30 staff members helped by 170 volunteers from various university partners.
The game also debuted the club's partnership with Give Vision, whose technology allows people suffering from blindness to follow the game live at the stadium using infrared glasses. More than 10,000 people attended the game, which was broadcast live and broadly covered in French and international media. What's more, 14% of the attendees became new ticket buyers for future club games.
Congratulations to the winning clubs, and to all the others who submitted outstanding entries!
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