Breaking attendance records during the 2017 summer of cricket

Challenge

Through the two biggest international cricket tournaments of 2017, the Champions Trophy and Women’s World Cup, the International Cricket Council (ICC) wanted to maximise match attendances and ticket sales, deliver a world-class matchday experience, and bring in a new audience to the sport.

Insight

Customer data both before and during a major event gives organising committees the tools to create informed, sophisticated commercial and marketing strategies, and insight to make in-tournament operational matchday decisions.

Solution

The ICC had a vast amount of legacy data around cricket fans in the UK, host of both tournaments in 2017, from previous ICC tournaments held in the region. By overlaying this with new, relevant demographic and attitudinal data from the target UK audience, it could create data-driven strategies to achieve its pre-tournament objectives.

Action

For both tournaments, Two Circles analysed legacy ticketing data, and carried out focus groups and fan surveys to create audience segmentations and model ticket purchase-buying patterns. Matchday experience surveys were also sent to fans after every match.

This insight was used to inform ticket pricing and allocations (with a focus on setting value-focused pricing tiers to drive strong attendances) and the structure, timing and marketing of the ticket ballots for both the Champions Trophy (whole tournament) and Women’s World Cup final.

The insight also drove marketing communications (tone of voice, brand feel and personalised e-mail campaigns to lists segmented by demographics, attitudes and interest), fan experience strategies (the results of matchday surveys allowing venues to identify areas to improve the atmosphere), and helped the ICC double the size of its marketable database.