Sports apparel company, Fanatics, picked AI powered company Luminr to help them find the great stories that sport often provides.  

The Challenge 

At last month’s MAD//Fest Kieran Boleman from Fanatics, the ultimate sports apparel and Fan Gear Store, featuring football Jerseys, T-shirts, Hats, Collectibles and merchandise for fans of all major sports over teh world, set the startups the challenge to help them improve their connection with fans at the optimum moment i.e. when your side or favourite player is already on their run of great form.

He was particularly looking for

  • A solution that can help them build those fan connections at the right moment. 
  • Use innovation and potentially AI
  • Help them find the stories that will enhance their offering and create great content. 

 

Luminr’s Solution

Luminr’s pitch was based on  how they isolate fan moments that make for great storytelling and make that content go viral around the world.

Fans of teams tend not to be very rational or logical. In fact, they tend to be rather emotional and very excitable. This leads to greater use of social media than the average person. This helps Lumina identify the stories, in advance, that can create the connections and content Fanatics are looking for - especially the Cinderella / underdog stories. 

So by clever use of AI and by listening to conversations and rumours online Lumia is able to gauge rising popularity of individual sports people and underdog team stories. 

“The goal of this is to bring Fanatics closer to the action, and the action being the fans. Problem is, you can't just parachute into these communities because you look like an imposter. You need to listen into this really interconnected network of conversations across the social web to show them you're with them … and when content is authentic and means something, and you deliver the storytelling, things blow up, and that's where the jerseys blow up. That's where real fans are born, and real fans live on within the world of Fanatics.”

Watch the whole pitch and find out why Fantatics think they'll win with Luminr.

You can watch all the MAD//Fest London action on our YouTube channel.