Visa: FanZone & UEFA Women’s Champions League

Challenge

Visa and DAZN are both proud champions of women’s football, helping to grow its reach, fanbase and engagement. But as much as the game has grown, there is still alarming negativity directed at female footballers.

Research showed that there has been an increase in negative sentiment towards female players across social media. Comparing social media comments from the last two major international tournaments for women’s football, the number of total posts related to female players had more than tripled while 9% for the last international tournament were negative, equating to over 38,000 abusive posts across the UK, France and Spain.*

Putting positive messaging at the forefront Visa FanZone was not only in response to the Visa led research, but data released by FIFA following the 2023 Women’s World Cup. FIFA revealed that 1/5 players faced online abuse, with female athletes being 29% more likely to encounter online abuse compared to male athletes throughout the 2022 Men’s World Cup.

Visa wanted to tackle online hate and create a safe environment for positive conversation, by motivating fans to leave messages of support. Visa put this challenge to DAZN and they launched the Visa FanZone on DAZN.

Our strategy to tackle this was to focus on the environments where fans across Europe would be directly watching and discussing UWCL games, embedding ourselves within game coverage in ways that allow positivity to flourish, drowning out the hateful commentary.

* Research commissioned by Visa analysing Twitter mentions of national team players in England, Spain and France between 6th-31st July 2022 and 20th July – 20th August 2023 inclusive.

Brand:

Entered by:

The Content Solution

The innovative partnership integrated Visa Pep Talks across DAZN’s UWCL live broadcasts, leading up to, and culminating, in the final between Barcelona and Lyon. Visa Pep Talks was a content-led in-broadcast integration which connected Visa athletes with highly engaged football fans, encouraging a self-sustaining positivity around the game, its players and its fans. It created a narrative of positivity to counter online abuse by leveraging DAZN and Visa’s influence and reach to foster an environment of support and encouragement across the UK, Italy, France, Germany, and Spain.

The core component of the partnership was the creation of an entirely new fan-led environment for women’s football alongside the live broadcast of UWCL games: The Visa FanZone. It was an on-platform integration that complemented coverage throughout DAZN’s live broadcast, designed to unite fans in their support for women’s football. We created 32 tailored FanZone experiences across 13 key UWCL matches.

In the Visa FanZone, fans were encouraged to send positive messages (Pep Talks), participate in polls and quizzes, and vote for the Player of the Match. The FanZone was integral in fostering a community focused on positivity, using interactive tools like branded GIFs and interactive leaderboards to boost engagement and drown out negative commentary. It set a new standard for how brands can collaborate with media platforms to enhance both viewer experience and brand engagement.

DAZN used a combination of AI and human resource to moderate the live chat, however the need for this was significantly lower than research had suggested it would be.

Media/Content Amplification Solution

The DAZN x Visa partnership focused on the knock-out stages of the UWCL from March to May 2024. For each game, tailored FanZone experiences that drive positive interaction across key moments in games were created:

Pre-game: FanZone reporters in the live broadcast feed invited fans to join the FanZone through polls and opportunities to support your team.
First half: Overlays in the live feed prompted fans to engage and support their team, driving to polls and specific Pep Talks for that game in the FanZone.
Half-time: FanZone reporters gave Pep Talk half-time result updates and highlighted the Player of the Half in the live feed. A live Pep Talk tracker update in the FanZone showed which team had the most positive support in the game so far.
Second half: Overlays in the live feed sent viewers to FanZone quizzes and encouraged them to vote for Player of the Match.
Post-game: Reporters put FanZone questions to players in the post-match interview in the live feed, and announced the winner of Player of the Match. In the FanZone, fans were encouraged to continue to celebrate their team with more positive Pep Talks.

DAZN’s globally leading women’s football YouTube channel was used to market the experience off-platform and funnel people towards the DAZN platform, coupled with other distribution and marketing efforts including free-to-air broadcasters.

Outside of this, the Visa FanZone was promoted before and during games in social media by DAZN talent, in DAZN social media channels, across DAZN’s publisher network and Visa’s own social media. Then further amplified to the DAZN extended global publisher network, which includes the likes of Mundo Deportivo, Goal.com, Girl Soccer Network, Sport.es and Whistle Sport. Over time this grew in influence, with fans and players sharing content from the Visa FanZone across each key UWCL game.

Fan engagement and participation with these mechanics increased across each stage of the UWCL knock-out phases, as Visa and DAZN established the Fan Zone and Pep Talks as part of live game coverage. This culminated in the biggest viewership, Fan Zone engagement and number of Pep Talks created in the final game between Barcelona and Lyon on 25th May.

Brand & Media Owner Partnership | Winner🏅

"This was an audience-led strategy that added a new level of conversation to the UEFA Women’s Cup – the jury were impressed by the strong results and scale of impact of this great partnership."

– Judges comments.

Total viewership of UWCL across DAZN and YouTube.

Viewership of the Visa Fan Zone, with 40% actively participating.

Pep Talk Messages generated, contributing to an 83% decrease in online negativity.

Results

DAZN x Visa FanZone created positive fan sentiment and increased Visa’s brand relevancy, but also made a clear impact on reducing the negativity surrounding UWCL games in Europe.

The Visa FanZone has successfully demonstrated how two brands, investing in the women’s game and fan engagement, can create a transformative cultural shift, fostering positivity and respect.

It delivered significant fan reach and engagement:

13 knockout games
162m+ match viewership across DAZN and YouTube, creating widespread impact across the UWCL tournament.
11m viewership of Visa FanZone specifically, with 40% of viewers actively participating generating 1.1m total positivity-driving engagements.
69,000 Pep Talk messages were generated, contributing to a wave of positivity that permeated the entire tournament.
A significant 25.9m Pep Talk support GIF views during the final highlighted the high level of fan interaction and engagement.
200m impressions.

It improved Visa’s brand relevance and affinity amongst sports fans:

Custom brand lift research found that 87% of those on DAZN, saw Visa as a progressive brand based on their Visa Fan Zone experience.
The campaign led to a 16% increase in the perception of Visa supporting women’s football, along with a 34% rise in brand familiarity and a 13% uplift in brand favourability.

We reduced online negativity:

The campaign successfully reduced negative sentiment on DAZN platforms around women’s football to just 0.07% by the final match, marking an 83% decrease from the quarter-finals to the final. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the campaign in creating a positive atmosphere that discouraged hate speech and abusive behavior.

Together with DAZN, Visa FanZone has set a new benchmark for brand integration in sports media. It created a more positive and inclusive atmosphere for both fans and players: another step in Visa’s mission to positively champion the appeal and participation of women’s football.