With their prowess in sports, marketing and sponsorship, Shannon Ferguson and Kris McCarthy never thought they’d have problems getting businesses to sponsor the minor professional hockey teams they managed. But two years ago, the two hit a snag: They noticed a lot of businesses wanted more bang for their sponsorship buck. “Businesses wantedmore than just their logo on a jersey or their name brand on a rink board or scoreboard,” said Ferguson. “They wanted a digital way to activate and engage people, track their return on investment and track customer analytics.” McCarthy and Ferguson realized that they had nothing in their inventory that could provide sponsors what they wanted so they co-founded the FanSaves app to help themselves get more sales. “Businesses wanted more than just their logo on a jersey or their name brand on a rink board or scoreboard, they wanted a digital way to activate and engage people, track their return on investment and track customer analytics.”
— Bringing Sports Sponsorship into the Digital Age
by Jamie Barrie E veryone has been to a sporting event, spent 2 or 3 hours watching their favorite team in the arena or on the field, but can you remember the names of the sponsors that were on the boards or around the arena or field? If you can great for you, but for most of us that is where Shannon Ferguson and Kris McCarthy and their company FanSaves platform come into play. This month we chatted with Shannon and Kris about their new app that is giving businesses that sponsor events more bang for their sponsorship buck and something that truly engages potential customers.
“There just wasn’t anything in the market, so we created it ourselves and soon realized we could help other teams and organizations who were in the same position as us.” said Ferguson. FanSaves is amobile app that gives sports fans discounts and deals from their favourite teams and organizations. People can simply download the app for free, follow their favourite teams and see exclusive deals from businesses that sponsor the team. No more need to cut coupons out of the back of the game-day program. McCarthy says that FanSaves is a digital solution for teams and their sponsors that allows them now to both have the opportunity to track important redemption metrics in their unique dashboards. “We’re living in a data-driven world and brands need to be able to track their ROI. FanSaves finally makes this possible and activates fans in the process,” he said. Ferguson sees sports-tech as an emerging industry and knows they have to keepupwith the trends by continuing to update the app and stay ahead on innovation in their marketplace.
77 SEPTEMBER 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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