In Focus/ Piing Crowd Gaming Is The Revenue Generator You Never Heard Of!
Grabbing a moment of fan attention at a sports event has become the holy grail of sports sponsorship. For Piing, mass-participation fan engagement is the name of the game.
Sports events are a dream come true for brands and sponsors. All those fans in attention-mode, concentrating on the game.
Anywhere a fan might lay their eyes is prime real estate. But how much do audiences notice a logo, and does it really create an emotional relationship between brand and fan?
What if you could give fans something of value, an additional level of engagement, a new channel that acts as a vehicle to brand exposure for your most precious partners? A mass-participation game offers all this, along with scalability and an emotional hook that acts as a gateway to sports partnerships and first party data.
Passive viewing to eyes-up engagement
Fan engagement is evolving at a rapid rate and with it, new opportunities are opening for partnerships and brands. Devices are now a familiar aspect of match day and secondscreen engagement is a thing, with apps and live content all part of the experience.
Both in-bowl and in fanzones, branded content offers an immersive experience and is fertile ground for fan engagement.
This is where mass-participation gaming comes in. An arcade-style game developed specifically for stadium screens, played by tens of thousands of spectators at a time. It’s a level of “eyes-up engagement” that keeps fans glued to the big screen and opens a whole new range of partnership opportunities.
“When was the last time you heard 50,000 fans cheer for a brand activation?” asks Gareth Langley, CEO of Piing.
“Piing creates stadium-sized shared moments that bring the whole crowd together – this positive, emotional response is gold dust for brands and partners.”
Mass gaming as a marketing tool
Piing games have broad appeal from children to grandparents, with no app download required and a quick, easy join process. The games are all about the experience of playing with thousands of fans in the stadium, all at the same time.
This inclusive approach has driven strong engagement: up to 35% of fans in the stadium take part, with as many as 65% opting in to marketing and click-through rates reaching as high as 83%. It’s clear that when fans associate fun with a brand, they respond. This proven impact has led to strong adoption by clubs, sports marketing agencies and major brands including adidas, Audi and Riyadh Air.
“We customise the appearance of each game to fit the club and brand, creating a bespoke product perfect for club partnerships,” adds Langley. “We also tailor the end of the game, so brands can push users onto onward digital journeys, for example to data capture and web promotion pages.”
Proven success rates
Piing games are now a regular feature at many Premier League fixtures, including Brighton & Hove Albion, and Piing is the Official Crowd Games Supplier to Manchester City FC. Internationally, Piing has engaged crowds at FC Bayern Munich, Atlético Madrid and Charlotte FC, as well as in fanzones across Europe for Euro 2024, and on stadium big screens during the Women’s World Cup.
Recently, Piing received the ‘Best Technology for Fan Engagement’ award at The STA Group Sports Technology Awards, beating some stiff competition, which included the sports presentation for Paris 2024.
“Piing games open up a world of possibilities for rights holders, brands and agencies,” adds Langley.
“By engaging stadium-sized crowds, we generate value for partners, creating new high-value sponsorship inventory for rights holders. But this is just the beginning.”
