Sometimes, when watching football coverage on TV, you could almost believe it hasn’t changed over the years. And with so much fast-paced innovation going on within consumers’ lives and across the technological landscape over recent years, it definitely feels as if the whole experience of watching the game is ripe for a major shot in the arm.

The future of football on television was the subject of a panel discussion I took part in last weekend at the Adidas Lab, alongside experts from from BT Sport, YouTube, YouTube football channel Copa 90 and Adidas Global.

We kicked off by exploring the future of football broadcasting. The key consumer trends impacting how football will be shown by mainstream broadcasters are Demanding Consumers, Everyday Exceptional and Authenti-Seeking. It is very likely that the football fan of the future will expect the broadcasting experience to be closer to the in-stadium experience, to be more tailored to them as an individual and more immersive. Broadcasters might, for example, be better able to segment their offering, recognising that not all fans have the same relationship with the teams playing in a particular match, and therefore require different things from the broadcast, depending their interest in the teams playing and the importance of the game. For example, on some occasions viewers might prefer partisan rather than impartial commentary. They might like to suppress the commentary entirely and replace it with crowd noise (including banter, chanting and swearing) from a specific section of the ground.

Then we moved on to the future of online football, which clearly offers up new horizons to fans, in terms of content and access. Consumer trends such as Mobile Living, Native Marketing and Free! are highly relevant here, highlighting fans’ desire to access the sport they love via smartphones and tablets, wherever and whenever they want, to find the content they want without paying for it, and to immerse themselves ever deeper in the stories and characters that inhabit the beautiful game. Many clubs are already active in this sphere – Manchester City were cited as a good example, offering a “Tunnel Cam” that gives subscribers a new access point to see the players before the come onto the pitch.

From there we moved on to second screens. Second screening refers to viewers simultaneously doing something else like texting, web-surfing or status updating at the same time as viewing, driven by consumer trends like Smart Boredom and Smart Networking. In the context of football the second screen can be used for all kinds of things:

• Exchanging the banter that is so much a part of the football community using either dedicated apps such as Vubooo and Squawka Zeebox or traditional social media sources (Facebook, Twitter, and so on)
• Betting on the changing match situation via in-game gambling options
• Keeping tabs on the progress of one’s Fantasy Football team
• Ordering pizzas and other in-match provisions

We finished by considering the future of data in football (on TV), where consumer trends like Total Recall, Quantified Self and Consumer Capital become highly relevant. Data, in particular statistics from Opta, now characterise in- and post-game analysis like never before. Some of the high-tech gadgetry on show at the Adidas Lab will make data even richer and more accessible. But there is clearly a question about how much of this is desired by the viewing fan, as opposed to the football community itself.

From the 2013 season onwards, shirts worn by players from all participating teams in the US’s Major League Soccer will carry small chips powered by the Adidas miCoach Elite System that track a number of performance measures – including heartbeat, acceleration and speed. Spectators can access the data via a dedicated iPad app.

As the amount of data that in-ball, on-pitch, in-goal and on-player devices offer skyrockets, so do the dangers of data overload. I think the emphasis will continue to be on the usage of statistics to tell compelling stories through the usage of increasingly cool visualisation tools, rather than the stats being an end in themselves.

Overall, what seems clear is that the future of the beautiful game on TV is exciting. Football arouses passions that are often difficult for those not swept along by them to understand and which are diverse – from anger to frustration, sometimes joy, often humour. And all of these need to be retained in whatever form the high-tech future brings to us. Provided they can be kept the future of football can be both real and high-tech.

Superbrands has today revealed its 2013 line-up of the UK’s top brands, as chosen by marketing professionals, business leaders and consumers.  And interestingly, Rolex is officially the UK’s number 1 consumer superbrand, pipping Apple (and Microsoft) to the post.  In many ways, this is surprising – while Apple spearheads the latest in cutting-edge mobile/ lifestyle technology, continuously evolves its products to meet a seemingly unquenchable consumer thirst for innovation and leads a baying mobile pack, Rolex is – for me at least – the very epitome of tradition and ‘old-fashioned’ technology.  Every other conversation I have these days seems to end up on wearable technology, smart watches and graphene – so does a watch maker established in 1905 in pre-war London have over an uber-trendy Cupertino-based brand that has reinvented itself from humble beginnings to become essentially the face of the 21st century?

My guess is that it’s in part linked with the financial crisis – in times of anxiety, the comfort of a reassuringly familiar, established brand that represents the very essence of Britishness is hugely appealing.  This is our Magic Nostalgic trend write large, with elements of Myth of Decline and Authenti-seeking – the past holds powerful emotional appeal and the natural human tendency is to cast a nostalgic eye on it, imagining ourselves back in a time of innocence and happiness.  We’re bombarded by the invented, the fake, the pimped up – the authenticity of Rolex is refreshing and honest.

In part, I also sense elements of Transparency and The Good Company – Rolex is famous for its philanthropic approach and its Awards for Enterprise are crafted to encourage and foster visionary entrepreneurs who want to make a meaningful contribution to the world.  This is hugely appealing – in straightened times, we need stories of people out there in the world making a difference, doing amazing stuff for the collective good – rather than Apple’s more American individualistic mentality.

It isn’t surprising that the rest of the top 10 is dominated by technology giants – Apple at 2, Microsoft is number 3, Google at 6.  Future-facing technologies that make our lives simpler, more efficient and simply better, are vastly important – core trends like Simple Complexity and Smart Boredom are on a constantly upwards trajectory.  But it is delightful to see such strong national sentiment for a brand that represents the great and good of our past.

What do you think?  Why did Rolex win the race?  What does it have that other brands don’t?  Is it a temporary, recession based trend or one that sits deep in the human psyche?

Our guest blogger this month is author, entrepreneur and ideas guru Tim Drake. His distinguished and varied career has seen him head up the Client Services team at global advertising  agency BBDO; set up a retail business which achieved a turnover of £17m; establish 3 think tanks for CEOs; and pen a number of  groundbreaking books including You Can Be As Young As You Think, and, most recently, How to Make A Difference.  Here Tim explores some of the guiding principles behind How to Make a Difference.  Tim is also a Future Foundation nVoy.

Yes, there’s a growing desire to make a difference and add value to society. And it could be game changing.

My book How to Make a Difference takes a close look at this, and uses Future Foundation research as a starting point to do so. The Future Foundation research in question confirms that in 1980 people who felt, either strongly or moderately, that they wanted to “fulfill myself as an individual” amounted to just 30% of the population. By 2011 that figure was 60%. Conversely, people saying “I want to own more things than I do now” has declined.

There are several reasons for this. A major one would be that long term rising affluence has coincided with debilitating stress brought about the competitive pressures of globalization. This has induced an urgent need to find meaning – a still centre in our lives – where we can get in touch with our purpose and validate our existence as human beings. The rise in social media has accelerated this desire to express and enjoy ourselves through what we experience – travel, culture etc – rather than what we own. And it has been given added impetus by the Gen Y imperative to find identity and fulfillment through collaboration, rather than individual self-expression.

How can brands capture the energies and enthusiasm of people who are turning away from merely material possessions? The answer must lie in helping them make good things happen. This will require a supercharge to the CSR agenda to bring it even more centre stage for brands.

The good news is that it will have to be genuine, because consumers can smell hypocrisy at fifty paces. So the brand management at all levels – and their creative agencies – now have the opportunity to innovate some ground-breaking stuff.  Not only that, they’ll feel good about themselves and their brand because they will know they really are making a difference.

Picking up on our consumer safari, guest blogger and Feedback CEO Danny Masting recounts his experiences and learnings.

Last week I was fortunate to be invited to participate in Future Foundation’s latest initiative to uncover insight and stimulate new thinking – an urban insight safari! #ffsafari

The idea requires gathering together a collection of brand owners, strategists and researchers, drag them out of their cubicle farms, then taking them to places that challenge while feeding them with intense experiences that stimulate and surprise.

First, we went to Victoria Miro in NW1 to see work by Grayson Perry & Sarah Sze. I consider myself a blend – 50% traditionalist, 50% philistine – so this definitely took me to a place where I was anything but comfortable. I quickly became aware of the space around us, especially the way in which the gallery uses height to change perspectives, as a substrate for work. I’m reminded of New York, which is the only city where I ever walk around and remember to look up. There is virtue in going to a gallery, taking a pause and re-framing how we look at ‘everyday’ stuff.

Second, we went to a part of London most people avoid, to visit an urban farm collective who have regenerated a retail space through social enterprise and volunteering. It is now a self sustaining café & venue. Again, not my thing but I was struck by how every piece of their wacky and ambitious experiment had a story containing layer after layer and detail most people could never imagine.

Thai basil growing under low level lights

Third stop was a tour through Borough Market designed to trick the senses and share a concept of how we will live in 2062. Most times I go there I am heading for a train or perhaps meeting someone at the excellent array of bars and gastro-stalls; the idea of stopping to ask what it is that makes it a special space has never occurred to me. Here I deviate from the plan, since the real value to me was not in what had been prepared for us but in the way my fellow participants were all engaging their senses to evaluate the stimulus:  flavours, noises, smells and textures…

The overriding lesson for me was the role of the ‘narrative’. It was a common thread running through all three experiences. Whether it be the artists explaining their exhibition, the tale of urban regeneration or the provenance associated with food – they were linked by the requirement to tell a story and the voracious appetite of people around them – not just to listen to it, but to join in. We have always told stories, but in recent years we’ve lost the ability by overdependence on the media to do it for us. Now though technologies have awakened in each of us a desire to get involved, co-author, mash-up and share.  This isn’t confined to art and culture (where perhaps it was always alive and well) but has become part of everyday life: an Instagram picture on a FB page, a review about a book via amazon.com or a tweet connected to a newsworthy local incident.

Neal’s Yard – Cheese Store & Stichelton

The commercial implication for brands is straightforward. Society doesn’t want to be told a story, it wants to be part of a story. Brands need to consider carefully the narrative, which bits they need to own or use to guide us versus those we want to open source and share. Agencies and brands need to give careful consideration to the role of their audiences in co-creating the materials that drive advocacy and the channels used to share the story. 

danny@feedbackagency.com

@McDanster