Fuse’s Amelia Dabell on digital transformation in sports sponsorship

Amelia Dabell is Digital Planning Director at Fuse, a global sports and entertainment agency. We caught up to find out about her role, and how sports media and sponsorship is changing.

Image: Amelia Dabell

Tell us about your role – what does a typical day look like for you?

I am primarily responsible for leading and growing Fuse’s digital service proposition, an increasingly important part of the business as we strive to help close the digital gap between the sport industry and the wider media landscape.

The workload like this whatsapp number list allows both the vendor and the affiliate to focus on. Clicks are the number of clicks coming to your website’s URL from organic search results.

One of my favourite aspects of my role is that it varies day to day, ranging from pitching for new business with brand sponsors that have a digital or performance focus, to creating digital activation strategies, or implementing new processes to strengthen the quality of our digital outputs across the account teams.

Some notable client successes include helping to shape Just Eat and FedEx’s respective digital campaigns as part of their UEFA Champions League sponsorships alongside creating Trivago’s digital strategy with Chelsea FC.

What areas of digital strategy should brands in sport be focusing on in 2022?

In the increasingly fragmented media landscape that we find ourselves operating in today, fighting for user attention is a constant challenge for brands. Marketeers have started to put more emphasis on interaction and engagement scores versus traditional reach and view metrics. Whether through immersive tech such as VR or AR, talent/influencers or through community-led environments like YouTube and Twitch – the emphasis needs to be on fan participation and putting them in the driving seat.

Social commerce is an exciting proposition that I feel can both deliver ‘full funnel’ but also elevate the fan/user experience. A great example of this is an activation by Ellesse, who recently launched their new catalogue via a livestreamed shoppable concert with Zara Larson on TikTok. This engaging format gave the user the opportunity to buy items whilst enjoying an exclusive live music gig – thus placing the user and their own consumption habits at the heart of the experience.

Equally, this presents a lucrative opportunity when viewed through the context of sport; whether executed via API-driven in-feed shoppable livestreams, or scannable QR codes or objects, the fan appetite and engagement is unrivalled. Nike’s Air Jordan’s selling out in 23 minutes via an exclusive Snap code at an NBA game is a perfect illustration of this. This year we’ll expect to see Klarna and their Chicago Bulls partnership give fans access to shoppable social and digital content featuring fashion looks by their NBA ambassadors Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball.