Real Madrid teams up with Adobe to enhance global fan experience

Real Madrid is aiming to better connect with its fans worldwide using Adobe’s Experience Cloud software.

The Spanish sports giant – which excels at basketball as well as football – is arguably the premier football club on Earth.

The club has won 13 European Cups and 10 basketball ones. Its most famous victory on British soil was the 7-3 hammering of Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park in 1960. Hampden was also the venue for Zinedine Zidane’s sublime goal in the final of the same competition in 2002 – against German opposition once more, Bayer Leverkusen.

The club has millions of fans globally, with 371 million followers on social networks, and is for the third year in a row the most valuable football club in Europe, according to The European Elite 2020 report, prepared by consultancy KPMG.

According to a statement from the club, it will use Adobe Experience Cloud to connect fans from around the world “through an immersive sports entertainment experience, both on and offline”.

In part, this means Real Madrid will be able to deliver personalised advertising around the pitch during games that will depend on where fans are at any given time, such as on public transport or at a bar, the statement said.

Michael Sutherland, chief transformation officer at Real Madrid CF, said: “The experience of our fans comes first, so it was an easy choice to work with Adobe, who are the leaders in customer experience. The next generation of global fans are creators at heart, and Adobe’s DNA and comprehensive capabilities are letting us realise our vision for a global community who will engage with our expanded digital commerce ecosystem.

“Adobe helps us balance data and privacy in a way that lets us get to know our fans better through earned trust, and by delivering them the products and services they desire.”

For fans, the deal between the club and Adobe is said to be set to “deliver immersive virtual stadium experiences, bringing the Santiago Bernabeu to audiences through online experience, products and services”. Fans will also find themselves targeted with player-endorsed products.

The club will also use Adobe Experience Platform, a customer data platform, to create real-time, unified customer profiles to better analyse fans’ engagement with the brand. At present, depending on which country a fan is based, the stadium’s digital advertising boards already change dynamically. In the future, Real Madrid will deliver personalised ads based on fans’ locations.

The club is not alone among football institutions in using digital experience software. Manchester City, which has 13 fewer European Cups than Real at present, recently announced it had teamed up with online survey company Qualtrics to tap into feedback from fans to enhance their matchday experience.