Crowdsourcing football

A version of this piece was published in Marketing in 2007

In pubs and bars around the world since time immemorial, men have gathered together to share what men share.  What cars they drive, what cars they’d like.  How the mother-in-law’s come to stay again.  How the Kings of Leon are basically Lynyrd Skynyrd (only younger).

But more than any of this, more passionately argued, more fiercely debated, is football.  The tactics and strategies around player selection, transfer, and condition.  The boardroom battles, the management politics, and how much the replica kit costs. 

Every issue that could be covered is done to death, like a global game of back-seat driving, and everyone’s an expert.

But although progress has been made in recent years, few football clubs are run like businesses and even fewer are profitable.  Many are the playthings of the super-rich, the natural accessory for the man who has everything, and their boards often comprise the great, the good and the otherwise worthy.

From Simon Jordan’s Crystal Palace to our own Chris Ingram’s Woking, they are labours of love rather than profit (although not always by choice).

But now the Trialogue is coming to football.

Myfootballclub.co.uk is a website which plans to own and operate a football club.  48,000 people so far have registered their interest, and once they reach the 50,000 target the plan is to buy a club.  Each member will contribute £35 a year, in return for which they’ll get one share in the club through an industrial provident society.

After deducting £7.50 to run the website, the remaining £27.50 is made available to buy the club, fund transfers and infrastructure investment.

Members then get to discuss online their views on the club’s performance and most importantly, to vote on team selection, player transfers and club business.

I’ve written a lot recently about how some smart brands are creating valuable business by handing over control to consumers.  Trialogue brands like Nike+, Lego Mindstorms and Threadless have created a fundamentally new consumer dynamic, moving from being the creators and distributors of products to being the facilitators of consumer to consumer relationships.

Like open-source software and the copyleft movement, these brands are eschewing direct control in return for the wisdom of crowds and the power of social networking.

It is access to other consumers that makes Nike+ compelling – the value of the brand lies in the interactions it facilitates between the 37,239 people who uploaded a run in the past 24 hours.  Lego’s value lies in the combined power of people to create new uses and configurations for their product, and Threadless in the participation of individual people in the creation of their products.

James Surowiecki’s 2004 book ‘the Wisdom of Crowds’ discussed the peculiar ability of large groups of people to make judgements which when aggregated turned out to be more accurate and reliable than those of individual members of that group or even than experts.

His opening anecdote described how the crowd at a county fair had correctly estimated the butchered weight of an ox when their guesses were averaged – more accurately than the local cattle professionals, and the book goes on to draw numerous other parallels from the worlds of economics and psychology.

Myfootballclub.co.uk will draw together the collective wisdom of the crowd, and deploys it to run a football team.  It creates the first trialogue sports team, taking fantasy football to a new level.  More importantly, though, it will give 50,000 people the chance to be (at least in a small way) Roman Abramovich – next time they’re talking tactics, it’ll be as a club owner.

Whether 50,000 people will make better decisions than either the professionals in football or the super-rich will be interesting.  What is certain is that they’re going to have a lot more fun trying.

You are who you know, online

A version of this piece was published in Marketing in 2007


In the 1800’s, the Hooligan family established a reputation for themselves in Ireland that caused their name to fall in to the language.  In later years, perhaps understandably, the family changed their name, adopting Houlihan to distance themselves from their forebears’ reputation.  

The Hooligans knew the value of a name.  They knew it could create personality for a person you’ve yet to meet.  Think, Rockefeller, Iscariot, Hitler, Hilton – they all create associations you just can’t help.  And just as this works for names, we’re seeing a similar phenomenon online today, a sociological parallel replicated by search engine algorithms and the optimisation of websites.  

Each site has a name (its domain), and to a search engine this represents its family & background.  Older established sites tend to have more visibility in natural search results, resembling a family with deep historic roots.   Families like this tend to have built generations of wealth, be it property, land, financial assets or treasures from centuries ago.  And this is how search engines value sites.  

If a site has been running with a steady flow of good insightful content for many years, it will have built up a good presence in search engines.  Stronger sites end up linking to this content as a result, just like families tend to associate with others in their social class, and with similar interests and background. 

In search engine results, we’re presented with listings for hundreds of sites that we might never have visited.  It’s a chance for the sites to present themselves and see if we want to associate with them.  

Many sites will have optimised title tags and descriptions in their listings, going beyond a simple brand listing and providing some further background information to help users choose.  Users make instant judgements, using subtle cues in the search listing copy to determine whether this is a site they want to spend time with, just as they make snap decisions about people based on first impressions.  This is a game of nuance and delicacy, where getting the right level of optimisation is crucial, and a title that screams keywords all over it may not appear the sanest of characters to deal with.

In life, some families migrate, split, or start anew, and it is usually these that have a tougher time making ends meet.  Similarly, a new site or domain struggles initially to rank well in natural search, usually taking time to build a strong foothold.  

As networking families and business people have known for years, building acquaintances and relationships can drive opportunity your way.  And the power of that network is determined by more than just the sheer number of people in it, but by the quality of those people, the relevance of their shared interests and the closeness of their relationship to you.  In exactly the same way, search engines evaluate the quality and relevance of these relationships, putting more value on those that are closer to your interests and using these factors to influence your position in the rankings. 

So don’t hang out with the wrong crowd.  Don’t live in bad areas; associate yourself with transients, and with people whose interests don’t coincide with yours.  Don’t move house too frequently, establish yourself in your neighbourhood and put down roots.  Contribute to your community, and have valuable and interesting things to say.

Just as there are tips for social climbing, there are techniques for optimising your website for search engines.  And whilst people nowadays might draw the lines at taking elocution lessons to boost their social standing, their equivalent online are critical to business success, making a Rockefeller out of any Hooligan

Vertical search booms

A version of this piece was published in Marketing in 2007

Read about search, and you read about Google.  The powerhouse search business dominates how we think about search, and few places more so than in the UK.

We’re Google’s second biggest market (next to the US) –16% of their revenues – and a 79% share of searches, a far bigger share than it takes in the US.  Its share of ad revenue is even higher, as many advertisers lack the resources to spread their programmes beyond one search engine.  

So is there life beyond Google?

It’s tempting to think that the market’s sewn up, but just as in the display sector, where from many advertisers behaviour you’d think that only three websites exist, there’s actually a diverse ecosystem out there, full of niches Google hasn’t reached.

Online retail is now worth £11bn in the UK, and most purchases start with a search.  But search engines themselves are more important in the research phase – for buying itself, many people use price comparison sites.  Pricerunner, Kelkoo and Shopping.com all provide one stop access to hundreds of retailers, allowing consumers to compare features and pricing at a glance.

Whilst this has made a huge impact on white and brown goods, it’s gained little traction in clothing, where much of the recent growth in online retail has been focused.  Like.com could change this, by allowing users to search for similar items to the ones they see.  Search for ‘shirt’ in men’s apparel, and a range of different ones are presented.  But click ‘likeness search’ next to the light blue short-sleeved shirt, and around 300 similar ones are displayed from dozens of manufacturers.

The retail vertical is further subdivided, with uSwitch and Confused.com fighting for the market in financial services and utilities, and Moneysupermarket adding travel to these.  This area has generated a flurry of M&A activity recently, with Scripps buying uSwitch last year for £210m, Admiral considering the flotation of Confused, and Moneysupermarket’s expected £800m+ IPO this month.  These businesses have created a new intermediary in the value chain, and P/Es of around 40x show the expectations this market is creating in the city.

But search isn’t all about buying.  As the internet shifts from being an information to an entertainment medium, online video is booming.

Whilst much of the talk around online video has centred around sites like YouTube and Heavy.com, the fight for video search is a potentially much more lucrative one.

The most talked about name here is Blinkx.com, whose recent IPO on AIM values it at £120m.  Blinkx claims to index video in a completely different way to other search engines, and have a broader range of content than either Google or Yahoo.  But it’s playing in possibly the most competitive development area online, up against dozens of startups like Clipblast and Everyzing, together with the big guys, AOL’s Truveo and Google Video. 

Whilst volumes are still small, video search holds the navigation key for future TV consumption.  So these guys are well-resourced, and not keen for anyone else to eat their lunch.

The web is a medium where consumption is based on interest, and particular fields can attach very specific meanings to given words.  In these cases, a general search can be a wild goose chase.  Engineering, science, motoring and business have all spawned search engines particularly dedicated to their topics, but perhaps the biggest area is medical search.

Described as the world’s second opinion, medical search engines like Medic8.com and omnimedicalsearch.com provide access to information on virtually any condition, not just for consumers, but for doctors too.

These sites have created useful services that are clearly differentiated from the big guys.  They’re adding real worth to the search economy, and proving that the quality of search listings isn’t measured by their length.  But whilst they’re making money and creating real businesses, they’re not worrying Google.  For most people, the start and end of search is still there, and that’s the way it’ll stay, at least while the most common search term on Yahoo is… Google.

Retail and publishing merge

A version of this piece was published in Marketing in 2007

For as long as anyone can remember, publishing’s been a business with two principal sources of revenue.  You sold advertising and sponsorship to companies who wanted to promote themselves to your audience, and in some cases, you charged that audience to view your content. 

Then along came the web.  Those media owners who had been used to charging their audience suddenly found that they couldn’t. 

Each extra newspaper printed costs money, and with rising newsprint costs this has been a major pressure in newspaper production costs.  But the economics of web distribution are different to print media, as each extra reader is gained at a zero marginal cost.  Consequently, so much free content was available online that consumers were simply unwilling to pay.

Culturally, this was hard to accept for many in the business.

Simon Kellner, at the time editor of the Independent, told the ISBA annual conference that it was wrong not to charge for content, that journalism had value and that it shouldn’t be given away on the web.

Martin Sorrell speaking at Google’s Zeitgeist conference in 2006, echoed this thought when he noted that he advised media clients not to give their content away for free.

Clearly, both ITV and Metro have managed to make viable media businesses out of giving away their content, so ‘free’ is nothing new.  But this focus on charging audiences for content belied a lack of imagination about the true commercial value of that audience.  As some publishers have discovered, there are other ways to monetise audience – and as they do so, the boundaries between what is considered ‘publishing’ and ‘retail’ are becoming increasingly blurred.

Online-only media owners were quickest to exploit this, untrammelled as they were by historic notions of how to make money.  A quick look at MSN’s site shows editorial about the best deals available in various financial services – but look at their credit card recommendations, and you can click to apply there and then.  An article about jet-set luggage in the travel channel carries a link to buy suitcases from MSN shopping.

AOL’s music channel sells you iTunes downloads, their travel channel sells you flights.  Yahoo will find you a house to buy and Lycos will rent you a car.

All of these transactions are handled and fulfilled by partners of these portals, and although there are often tenancy agreements in place, a large portion of the deal is often on a revenue-share basis.

These publishers are adopting some of the transactional risk, on the basis that by doing so they generate greater spend by the advertiser/supplier than they might do if they were simply pitching for ad budgets.  In this way, they’ve branched out from advertising to become part of those marketers’ distribution strategy.

It isn’t just the online pure-plays that have grasped this. RunnersWorld.co.uk makes most of its money from advertising.  But a third of their revenue comes from runners registering to participate in running events – Natmags keeps a percentage of each transaction.

The Sun makes substantial revenue from Sun Bingo online – using both the print and online editions to drive traffic into the game.   The new football season will see Sun readers paying to download premier league goals to their mobiles, in addition to the Page 3 videos they can already buy.

This spread into retail from the publisher side has been mirrored by retailers, who are increasingly understanding that content sells.

The best of these is undoubtedly Net-a-porter.com, a fashion site selling premium brands from Jimmy Choo to Miu Miu.  High-quality magazine content and engaging style has led to an average order value of over £500 and very high levels of repeat purchase. 

The internet is a marketing channel (media), but it’s also a channel to market (distribution).  So whilst those who view it purely as ‘media’ will continue to limit their own potential, those who understand this new marriage of what Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet calls ‘content fused with commerce’ are tapping a rich seam.

Chuggers and fundraising on the internet

A version of this piece was published in Marketing in 2007

I used to work in the heart of adland, Soho, and it was a constant challenge to walk down Carnaby Street without being accosted by a camera crew gathering vox pops.  People who worked around there developed natural defence mechanisms – staring at the ground, trying to look really late – to avoid their clutches, leaving it to the Nordic backpackers to get nobbled.  Just a few days experience was all it took, and you could breeze past them with an “I’m incredibly important/late/psychotic” look, the body language equivalent of “shields to maximum”.

Now I work in Victoria, home to the chugger.  These guys are much tougher.  Trained in clipboard concealment techniques and come-hither smiling, they’re the ninjas of the street hustle, and they take no prisoners with their cheery greetings.

But not content with being assaulted by these breezy budget Lord Levys, we are starting to adopt their techniques for ourselves.

Hardly a day goes by without some colleague, friend or acquaintance threatening to climb Kilimanjaro, run somewhere or give something up in the name of charidee.  But in times past they’d have to flog round the office begging for signatures, abasing themselves in front of potential sponsors and generally nicing up to everyone.  And after subjecting themselves to whatever trial they’d selected, they’d have to repeat the process, chasing up reluctant donors to dust off their wallets.

All of which meant that your generosity of spirit was rarely exercised by these approaches.

But all that’s changed with the application of digital technology.

For some time now, email has enabled sponsorship nets to be cast much more widely.  One email to the whole department or even company, and you’ve hit your sponsorship target.  Dozens or even hundreds now know both how fit and how benevolent you are, and signups are easy. 

But getting them to pay was still a problem, and managing the logistics of acquiring, collecting and chasing sponsors was a burden that was as one marathon runner I know put it “almost as much arseache as the run itself”.

So websites like Justgiving.com provide infrastructure to deal with all these logistics.  All the user has to do is follow the easy steps to register their event and designate their charity, and the site does the rest for them.  The site handles credit card transactions, reclaims the tax on donations and even sends out a thank-you note, leaving the contestant to focus on treating their blisters.

The consequence was a further surge in sponsorship requests.  I’m now running at about one a day (amazingly just as I typed that, another came in, so make that two).

And it hasn’t stopped there.  The dizzying growth of Facebook over the past few months has added further fuel to the fire, adding yet another channel by which we can be mugged for charity.  Now we’re approached not just by Tracy in finance (for it was her just a moment ago), but by our friends as well.   Frugging (I just made this term up), the practice of charity mugging your friends through social networks, is set to be the next wave to sweep through Facebook, and it’ll only get worse once someone writes an application for the site to integrate donation into your network.

The tactic we’ve all adopted, of ignoring mass sponsorship emails in the hope that their volume grants us anonymity, is going to be crushed without mercy, and our parsimony exposed to the rest of the online world as all can see our profile.

Ultimately, the only comfort is that the people it’s going to hit hardest are those who maintain multiple online personalities.  In order to maintain face with their various communities, they may be forced to give many times over.  Perhaps someone will launch a charity for them.

In the meantime, I’m going to start smiling at chuggers.  I realise this might confuse them, but at least they’re less persistent than my friends.