No Taylor Swift, no problem as Chelsea find winning AI formula that could pay off big time

With consumer habits changing with each generation, football clubs have to constantly evolve how they market themselves to what is now a global audience.

There is a big difference between knowing what your audience wants and thinking you know what they want. Without understanding the changing behaviours of consumers and how they consume content, it is impossible to truly maximise the potential of brands seeking growth in new and emerging markets, as well as in their own territory.

While uncovering the winning formula for how to succeed on the pitch for Chelsea at present has proven something of a conundrum for the club’s owners, what has been happening behind the scenes, the club believes, has them hitting the right notes when it comes to how to give fans of ‘Gen Z’ — those whose birth years fall between the late 1990s and late 2000s — what they want within the realms of what they can control. Different generations want different forms of engagement from their favourite sports teams, and those habits can change in terms of geography, with the North American sports fan expecting a different proposition to the English Gen Z fan.

So how has a club like Chelsea sought to find a way to reach those fans, and is it a plan that is working? Speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Summit in London on Wednesday, Chelsea’s chief marketing officer Claire Cronin explained: «We really look at fan engagement at a very macro level.

»There are three ways to do it. Number one: win on the pitch, that absolutely helps to drive the fan engagement. Number two: have Taylor Swift date one of your players. Number three: use data and insights to see what your fans want. The first two are out of my control, and so the third one is really