New Research Advances Science of Why Fans Are Fans

Sports and entertainment consulting firm Octagon has unveiled the newest iteration of its proprietary, research initiative Passion Drivers® 3.0., an interactive tool which aims to manage and measure sports and music sponsorships.

Simon Wardle, Octagon Worldwide’s Chief Strategy Officer, explained the latest evolution of the research initiative he created six years ago. “We began by providing the industry’s first quantified understanding of why fans are fans which allowed marketers to understand their target consumers when they are in ‘fan mode’. Since then, we have studied 60,000+ avid fans of 30+ sports in 11 countries on six continents,” he said.

Wardle said the agency evolved the 2.0 version of the Passion Drivers® initiative to allow clients to conduct proprietary research using its proprietary methodology to understand why each of their consumer segments emotionally connects with their passions, helping clients see how to better leverage their sponsorship investment to connect their brand to their target consumers.

“Now, with our latest iteration of Passion Drivers® 3.0 research, we can instantaneously provide marketers with updated data and detailed media consumption by overlaying what we know about fans’ passion with a database of 40,000+ consumer metrics,” Wardle explained. “With this new tool, corporate sponsors can focus on not just the fan, but on their target consumer as the fan, giving them real-time insights into their target consumers and fans while they are consuming the sports and music they love.”

More than six months in development, the newest research extrapolates surveys with some 5,400 consumers against a database of 52,000 respondents. The launch of the Passion Drivers® 3.0 database currently encompasses fans of 13 sports. Later this year, the research also will be applied to Hispanic consumers and their passion for soccer.

For more information, please go to www.passiondrivers.com to download a Passion Driver® Profile.