Memorizing the club’s heritage through its first smart jersey
10% of all registered buyers used their early access right to purchase the jersey of the next season before anyone else.
Client: FC Zürich
Industry: Sports
Bringing merchandise to the digital dimension
Swiss football club FC Zürich created a special warm-up jersey featuring collectID technology to take fans on a journey through its 125 years of club history.
Bringing merchandise to the digital dimension
Swiss football club FC Zürich created a special warm-up jersey featuring collectID technology to take fans on a journey through its 125 years of club history.
Exclusive benefits for fans
This allowed the club to offer its fans exclusive benefits and upsell it’s products before public release.
Exclusive benefits for fans
This allowed the club to offer its fans exclusive benefits and upsell it’s products before public release.
%
Buyers scanned jersey
%
Buyers watched the movie before anyone else
%
Buyers bought the next jersey through collectID
Challenge
- How to tell the story about 125 years of history
- High cost of paid social media campaigns
- Newsletters have low opening rates
Solution
An encrypted collectID NFC tag was embedded in FC Zürich’s special edition warm-up jersey to commemorate the club’s 125-year anniversary. With a simple scan with their smartphones, fans could register ownership of the jersey, which gave them access to exclusive and never-before-seen content from the club’s rich history and FCZ’s documentary movie “Nie usenand gah”. In addition, FCZ used the collectID technology to offer registered fans priority access to the new season jersey before anyone else. FC Zürich can thus interact more closely with its fans and use this unique and innovative communication and sales channel to upsell its merchandise products.
Results
- 15% of all buyers scanned their warm-up jersey with their smartphone
- 13% of all buyers registered ownership of their warm-up jersey
- Around 300 fans watched the “Nie usenand gah” documentary before its public release on Swiss TV
- 10% of all registered buyers used their early access right to purchase the jersey of the next season before anyone else
Benefits for fans of FC Zürich
- Fans can dive deeper into the history of their favorite club with a simple scan of their physical jersey on their smartphone
- Registered buyers received priority treatment that strengthened their emotional tie to FCZ (e.g., access to exclusive content around the 125th anniversary).
- Because of the additional engagement and the dynamic digital content, fans hold their merchandise in higher regard, which leads to a higher value of the jersey
Benefits for FC Zürich
- FC Zürich generated additional sales through registered buyers that used their pre-buying right
- The club established a direct communication and sales channel with some of their fans and reduced social media dependence
- By telling the story of the club’s rich history through a physical jersey, FCZ created a more intimate and emotional connection to their fans
- The digital content enhances the perceived value of the FCZ merchandise and creates stronger engagement