ECB Seeks Better Insight Into Match Attendees

Agency Two Circles has been tasked by the ECB to help develop a much better understanding of the needs of customers attending cricket matches. Cricket is one of the most popular sports on television in this country and the insight is essential to help the sport attract more people to the grounds through assessing the needs of its customers and improving their match day experience. Two Circles are specialists in enabling sports rights holders to drive commercial growth through customer centric marketing strategies

The current economic climate, increased competition from different sports and other forms of entertainment, and most significantly from the option of staying at home and watching cricket on TV, have made it essential that the sport develops a greater understanding of its customers.  The proposition offered to the armchair fan in particular has improved significantly in recent years – new and improved technology, high definition and 3D television, super slow-mos, hawkeye and online interaction have significantly improved armchair experience providing an increased threat to attendances at matches. 

Working in collaboration with the 18 First Class Counties & MCC, on behalf of the ECB, Two Circles designed and executed a major consumer insight programme. The programme ensured every cricket ticket buyer at every international and domestic Friends Life t20 fixture during 2012 was asked for feedback through an online survey, within one hour of play ending.

The survey was designed to gain a personal insight to what the cricket ticket buyer thought of their match day experience, and also to benchmark the cricket match day experience across all First Class Counties. Two Circles designed the experience to capture County specific feedback based on data known about the buyer. 

Two Circles worked in partnership with Futures Sport & Entertainment to deliver a balanced scorecard of results from each game within seven days. This was accessible to the First Class Counties to enable on-going timely monitoring and action on any issues raised by customers.

Tom Johnson, Event Brand Manager at the ECB commented, “It is vital that we generate as much information and insight about our paying spectators as possible. Improving match day experience is a goal shared by the ECB and the First Class Counties. Two Circles developed a complex project that delivered the information and the results that we needed.”

Gareth Balch, Director at Two Circles said, “We were delighted to extend our role with the ECB & the First Class Counties to include attitudinal insight.  Our approach was to put the ticket buyer at the heart of our thinking & create conversations between rights-holders & customers. Cricket has huge numbers of supporters and we wanted to know and understand how we can get more of these supporters to go to watch cricket live.”