Snack Media are delighted to announce that they have secured an exclusive arrangement with Arsenal’s official car hire partner Europcar to deliver unparalleled live matchday coverage throughout the 2014/15 campaign.
Following Arsenal’s alignment with Europcar in August, London’s leading real-time content experts kicked off their own groundbreaking partnership by providing live blog coverage of the Gunners’ most eye-catching annual fixture – Arsenal versus Tottenham – on Saturday, September 27th.
Play-by-play coverage of the North London derby was housed within a live blog that lived on Snack Media’s flagship website www.footballfancast.com, not to mention the recently acquired www.arsenal-mania.com that includes the web’s leading Gunners fan forum with 90,000+ members.
On the day of the big match, Snack’s live blogging team assembled in Central London to provide not only commentary, but also branded imagery and industry leading team stats for the official @EuropcarSport Twitter handle.
Tweeting under the main hashtag #AFCLive, online Gooners were also invited to tweet with the ‘Fan of the Match’ hashtag #FOTM to be in with a chance of winning prestige car hire, courtesy of Europcar.
Snack’s involvement didn’t stop here. Content capturers were based on the concourses of the Emirates Stadium both prior to and after the 17:30 kick-off to obtain rich fan video content that was simultaneously sent on and embedded into the live blog to foster increased engagement.
Quizzing excitable Arsenal fans what their pre-match score and man of the match predictions were as well as inviting Gunners to come up with their own rousing team talk, this work further underlined Europcar’s visibility as the official car hire partner of Arsenal.
Delighted with the impact of Snack Media’s introductory live blog, managing director Niall Coen said “It was tremendously exciting to see the level of engagement for Europcar’s first live blog for Saturday’s North London derby. Arsenal fans spent over 600,000 minutes on Europcar branded content on the Arsenal Mania and the FootballFanCast.com network and close to five million Twitter accounts were reached through viral content. Our aim was to tap into the high level of ‘second-screening’ that we know goes on for all kinds of sports events, especially football, enhancing the OTS for the Europcar brand beyond the stadium presence.
“Our content development team and social media editors were creating branded content in real time, providing a platform for Arsenal fans to enjoy and comment on. It was great to see so much passion on show for the North London derby and we were pleased to see such a high level of engagement on the blog, as well as on social media.
“We are looking forward to delivering more great content for Arsenal fans for home and away matches in partnership with Europcar.”
Ken McCall, MD of Europcar UK Group, added: “The live blogs planned for a number of key matches through the season mean we can increase the opportunities to see [OTS] for our brand in a highly interactive and relevant way for football fans.”
Arsenal fans can look forward to Snack Media’s next live blog (below) that will take place on Saturday October 18th to coincide with the Gunners’ home fixture with Hull City.
So, if you think Arsene Wenger’s selected the right team to get back to winning ways after the Chelsea setback, that Danny Welbeck will continue to bag the goals following his switch from Manchester United, or that Jack Wilshere is recapturing his best form – be sure to make your opinions heard on Saturday using the hashtag #AFCLive.
