World class digital for a world class club

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club have been undergoing a transformation, both on the pitch and as club.

Saying goodbye to their famous White Hart Lane ground, 2019 saw the club move into the state of the art Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and reaching their first Champions League final. As one of England’s biggest and proudest football clubs, their ambition created a chance to update their business model and harness the enormous potential the fanbase holds through digital channels.

Spurs aimed to create a world class digital experience to match their market leading stadium, and to bring the fans to the heart of the club. With our deep sporting experience, Aqueduct was thrilled to be given the opportunity to work with such an iconic football club, on such an important project, to help them realise a new fan first website and to reimagine the retail presence. 

Our challenge was to find a way to give the club control over its digital ecosystem, to create a hub for fans to engage with the club with highly personalised journeys, and one that delivered commercial growth through maximising the retail offering.

Our approach

Our winning strategy put users and fans at the centre of the new Spurs website, beginning with a detailed research and understanding the range of audiences, flowing into an extensive customer experience planning and collaborative design phase.

Our user research uncovered how different fans engage in unique ways and brought numerous commercial insights that could shape the project build. Throughout we incorporated fan and stakeholders from the outset, with frequent interviews and testing with a diverse range of audiences, not just the die hard Spurs supporters but also the more casual fans. With a wide spectrum of users to cater for, we started investigating new corporate opportunities. From summer soccer schools, to gift merchandise, we wanted the new Spurs website to cater effortlessly to everyone.

We defined how our solution would be a success for the club:

• Digitally mirror the premium nature of the club and experience of the new stadium
• The website was tailored for fans, with the consideration that some fans might never visit the stadium
• Potential for global reach, so personalisation and international accessibility were vital to success
• User content would be personalised based on preferences, providing a customised and unique experience
• Mobile responsiveness was a top priority, our strategy was ‘mobile-first’
• Implementation of single sign on, providing users with a unified website, ticketing and retail service
• Data driven analysis to provide the club with an understanding of how fans interact with content

Our solution

Aqueduct led three key elements of the digital initiative: creative and user experience strategy, technical strategy, and production. Working as one team, by collaborating with client teams and harnessing Agile project methodologies, ensured that the client’s own resources are optimised and the ‘learning dividend’ from developing the project benefited the club, giving them full control and ownership of their new ecosystem.

Built using the open-source and lightweight CMS Umbraco, we created a flexible and dynamic technology approach that integrated the backend with Dynamic Yield software, enabling single sign-on that would simplify the user experience. This also collected important fan information, providing Spurs with opportunities for targeted content or promotions. The dynamic content modules could be swapped and replaced automatically, based on a fan’s individual preferences, and also enabled personalised retail based on user behaviour, location, and influences such as weather and time of day.

This techincal solution was revolutionary in its approach to personalised content delivery, the capability to switch, optimise and contextualise content provided significant commercial opportunities to the client. It meant that users from all over the world would have relevant, locally selected content options.

The outcomes:

• New Tottenhamhotspur.com club website created and launched
• Mobile first design with high Accessible design standards
• Highly personalised experience with on page contextualised modules and user journeys
• Optimised shop experience that presented products as a fashion brand experience
• Media Watch feature synthesises relevant external Spurs media, creating a single destination for fans
• Hashtags used to create individual user feeds
• An easier to navigate site, with focus on maximising video content

The results

Launched in summer 2018 after an extensive beta period, our digital solutions have been seen as highly successful for the Spurs organisation, and we continue to be a partner to the club.

• 49% increase in sales conversion
• 142% increase in mobile retail sales
• Highly positive fan sentiment and satisfaction
• More effective and streamlined editorial control reducing reliance on third party support

‘Aqueduct impressed us with their co-creation methodology and it has had a significant effect on both the experience and result.  Their ability to help us meet the needs of many stakeholders at the club and still keep the fan at the heart of the experience is a testament to their expertise creatively, technically and in the way they run the project from beginning to end.’ 

Sanjeev Katwa, Chief Technology Officer, Tottenham Hotspur FC