Internationalization strategy of Brand community

Major football clubs, such as the PSG, do not rely only on local and national fans but they also have an international communication strategy to increase their Community of fans, which is the most valuable asset a football club can have.

An efficient way for that is to recruit players that, either have a worldwide popularity or a national one, from nationalities that can increase sharply the brand (club) awareness and image in the players’ countries.

A good example of those strategies is the PSG.

Recruting worldwide icons :

By transferring David Beckham from the Los Angeles Galaxy, the purpose was not really form the sport aspect (to improve the team performance, he was 37 years-old) but to increase rapidly and largely the PSG image worldwide. 

Indeed, David Beckham is not only a football player but also a person (and a brand as well) that benefit from a huge notoriety worldwide and especially in Asian countries where he really is an icon. Such a transfer allowed the PSG to benefit from an amazing media coverage internationally, not only in Europe but also and mainly in Asia where David Beckham’s popularity is giant and in the US where he was playing before signing (the Los Angeles Galaxy, where he also contributed to develop football notoriety in the US which was a minor sport in the country). 

By doing so, the PSG opened up itself new markets in the US and Asia. David Beckham became the number one ambassador of the club, like some company may do, like Nespresso with Georges Clooney or Loréal with Eva Longoria as the brand égérie.

Recruiting national icons :

The second way is to buy players that are icon in their own country like Thiago Silva, Lucas, David Luiz and Marquinhos in Brazil. By doing so, PSG not only tried to improve the team’s performance but also the brand awareness and image in Brazil.

The Marketing strategies following those recruiting strategies :

The PSG then, made available its official website in English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Chinese and even Indonesian. It also created official facebook PSG pages in those countries in order to talk to their community in their own langage and get closer to them. (In china, they made themselves available on Webo and Tencent which are the most popular social networks). Thanks to that they can touch a larger public and develop the PSG community more efficiently worldwide.

Besides the increase of the number of PSG jersey sold abroad, the PSG will monetize their community asset by offering the fans abroad (Brazil, China and many other countries) the possibility to watch on pay-per-view the PSG games on their website. This business growth potential is huge knowing the quantity of potential customers in those densely populated area.

Another strategy is to produce itself 52 minutes weekly TV show intended to foreign TV channels. This show will include highlights of the game and interviews and reports that will allow the fans to get an inside perspective of the PSG.

Source : PSG website, Figaro article : PSG is becoming worldwide