Revolutionizing Fan Engagement: How ‘Fan Lifetime Value’ Transformed Ajax Football Club

Client and Challenge

Ajax, a leading force in the Dutch and European football industry, has always been at the forefront of media and digital innovation. However, the digital department found it challenging to quantify the impact of various initiatives on fan engagement and the organization’s bottom line. This difficulty hindered strategic planning and prioritization for the future. Recognizing the need for data-driven insights, Ajax collaborated with Latitude to develop a custom solution to this challenge.

Results

The introduction of the new dashboard, business impact framework, and the FLV metric has led to significant benefits:

Clearer Insights: The new systems provide a clearer understanding of how investments and initiatives impact the club’s bottom line and fan engagement.
Enhanced Fan Engagement: With the FLV metric, Ajax can now measure and optimize fan engagement, a critical aspect of the club’s operations.
Strategic Decision Making: The business impact framework has facilitated more informed strategic choices for initiatives and a clearer innovation roadmap.
Improved Job Satisfaction: Developers can now see the tangible effects of their work on the organization, enhancing job satisfaction.

In line with Latitude’s mission, this project showcases the power of simple, effective, and innovative data-driven solutions in enhancing operational efficiency, driving business impact, and boosting fan engagement at Ajax, a leading football club in Europe.

Solution

Latitude’s unique solution involved the creation of a novel dashboarding system and a custom business impact framework. The dashboard integrated financial data with user data, providing constant insights into business performance and project impact. This new system marked a significant departure from Ajax’s previous standalone overviews, delivering a comprehensive, interconnected view of different business areas.

The standout innovation was the development of a unique metric known as the “Fan Lifetime Value” (FLV). This metric amalgamated two key aspects – fan engagement, crucial for a football club as it directly influences what sponsors are willing to pay for access to fans, and a more traditional customer lifetime value approach. The FLV allowed Ajax to understand and measure the value each fan brings to the club over time, both in terms of engagement and financial contribution.

Method

The Latitude team began by analyzing existing financial and user data, incorporating it into the new dashboard for a unified view of business performance. Simultaneously, they facilitated strategic workshops with heads of the digital department and project leads across the business, using these sessions to develop the custom business impact framework.

This framework, enhanced by the FLV metric, not only benefited the digital department but also rippled through the organization. It provided clear insights to the CEO and CFO on investment outcomes and business impact, fed into the innovation roadmap, and boosted job satisfaction among developers by showcasing the tangible effects of their work.

In conclusion — Latitude provided a comprehensive, interconnected data-driven solution to Ajax Football Club, transforming the way they measure fan engagement and the impact of various initiatives on the organization’s bottom line. By implementing a novel dashboarding system, a custom business impact framework, and a unique “Fan Lifetime Value” (FLV) metric, Ajax is now able to quantify the value each fan brings to the club, both in terms of engagement and financial contribution. This allows the club to make strategic decisions, optimize fan engagement, and assess the business impact of its investments, thereby improving job satisfaction among developers and enhancing overall business performance. This initiative showcases the power of innovative data-driven solutions in transforming fan engagement and operational efficiency at one of Europe’s leading football clubs.