Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Gallus Numpty]

36 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

What can we say? We exist to improve people's lives.

Given <everything else> that the club does there's zero doubt that this is coming from a genuine place. It's something that's pretty difficult to pull off without seeming slightly weird and intrusive and "Big Brother-y" (because it is slightly weird and intrusive and "Big Brother-y") but fair fucks to the club for just going with it despite that.

Pretty much sums up my feelings too. Sounded like a great idea when I read about it, but when I saw the actual email it seems a bit creepy, and borderline data-protection-infringey (did you really give them permission to monitor your attendance at games when you bought your season ticket? Maybe, I don't have one). But it seems to be getting a lot of positive feedback, so hopefully they'll tweak things a bit if required and try to keep the creepiness to a minimum in future.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Gallus Numpty

[Swami]

37 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

What can we say? We exist to improve people's lives.

Given <everything else> that the club does there's zero doubt that this is coming from a genuine place. It's something that's pretty difficult to pull off without seeming slightly weird and intrusive and "Big Brother-y" (because it is slightly weird and intrusive and "Big Brother-y") but fair fucks to the club for just going with it despite that.

Ultimately if you shake off the cynicism, you're making headway into making people feel valued and also understand wants/needs of your fanbase.

People talk a lot about "fan engagement" and Chairman Flao's reply to @Busta Nut's not entirely serious tweet kind of highlights the broader aspect of what we're trying to achieve. On a secondary level it's market research to find out why they weren't able to make the game and if it's a reason that the club can address eg: if the ST holder didn't feel safe, can we do something about that. That's the good shit right there.

Actually "reaching out" and asking your core base questions and digging into the data is a very smart move.

I’d imagine some of the responses were along the lines of ‘I was at that shit-show at Dens a couple of weeks before, and f**k watching that again’. 

[well fan for life]

3 minutes ago, Gallus Numpty said:

(did you really give them permission to monitor your attendance at games when you bought your season ticket? Maybe, I don't have one)

It's not really surprising that they're using data like this. And tbh what everyone's carrying around in their pocket 24 hours a day likely gives away more information than whether you turned up at Fir Park on a Saturday or not. 

 

[capt_oats]

27 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

It's not really surprising that they're using data like this. And tbh what everyone's carrying around in their pocket 24 hours a day likely gives away more information than whether you turned up at Fir Park on a Saturday or not.

Aye.

To be clear there's no snark in my post above, as I say I think it's actually a good thing to see that the club is using their data and analytics (I'm sure there are Premiership clubs who haven't got a fucking clue/aren't paying attention to how many of their ST holders are turning up on matchdays). I can imagine it might have been a surprise to some to find that the club were/are monitoring attendance.

I mean, it's good business sense for them to do that but from a fan POV they're not obvious dots to join.

It's a pretty difficult job to get copy that 100% lands on the well-meaning, social interest side of things rather than lean into full blown Enemy Of The State when you're doing a targeted mail out saying "so...we see you didn't use your season ticket on Saturday?".

Edited September 3, 2021 by capt_oats

[well fan for life]

4 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aye.

To be clear there's no snark in my post above, as I say I think it's actually a good thing to see that the club is using their data and analytics (I'm sure there are Premiership clubs who haven't got a fucking clue/aren't paying attention to how many of their ST holders are turning up on matchdays). I can imagine it might have been a surprise to some to find that the club were/are monitoring attendance.

I mean, it's good business sense for them to do that but from a fan POV they're not obvious dots to join.

It's a pretty difficult job to get copy that 100% lands on the well-meaning, social interest side of things rather than full blown Enemy Of The State when you're doing a targeted mail out saying "so...we see you didn't use your season ticket on Saturday?".

Genuinely cracks me up when folk start clutching their pearls over possibly being tracked through means like this when they've willingly handed over every single detail of their life to The Zuck. 

[Al B]

4 hours ago, well fan for life said:

Genuinely cracks me up when folk start clutching their pearls over possibly being tracked through means like this when they've willingly handed over every single detail of their life to The Zuck. 

There is no agenda at all in Facebook needing my family history so I can find out my spirit animal is a giraffe, and I won't let you tell me any different.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Al B

[ropy]

They literally get the information for nothing, we hand over our cards and they are scanned, the code is validated against a database and our attendance is recorded. It is how we gain entry.

if they can use that info for good or to adapt the product then it makes sense.

Tesco does something similar when I get a club card voucher for Country Crisp cereal.

[Gallus Numpty]

56 minutes ago, ropy said:

They literally get the information for nothing, we hand over our cards and they are scanned, the code is validated against a database and our attendance is recorded. It is how we gain entry.

Collecting the information is one thing, but in these GDPR days, how long they're allowed to keep it, what they're allowed to use it for, and even how they store it is a whole different matter. Hopefully they're on top of all that though, as it does seem like a good use of the data.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Gallus Numpty

[Gallus Numpty]

3 hours ago, well fan for life said:

It's not really surprising that they're using data like this. And tbh what everyone's carrying around in their pocket 24 hours a day likely gives away more information than whether you turned up at Fir Park on a Saturday or not. 

It does, but that of course is what you agreed to when you signed up with your phone provider and the various services on it, so that's why they're allowed to do it. That doesn't give any other company free rein to do what they like with your data, legally they have to it make it very clear what they're going to do with it when you sign up for whatever they're offering. But as I said above, hopefully they're well on top of that and it's all good.

[thisGRAEME]

3 hours ago, capt_oats said:

To be clear there's no snark in my post above, as I say I think it's actually a good thing to see that the club is using their data and analytics (I'm sure there are Premiership clubs who haven't got a fucking clue/aren't paying attention to how many of their ST holders are turning up on matchdays). I can imagine it might have been a surprise to some to find that the club were/are monitoring attendance.

Hunner percent. I'll assume all the data permissions and such were done properly because of course they were.

There's some super interesting stuff done across Europe (https://digitalsport.co/how-dutch-club-az-alkmaar-are-using-data-to-drive-engagement-with-their-fans for example, even at 3 years old I think a lot/most clubs are still miles off this) and in a relative sense, e-mail stuff is cheap as f**k for the potential return in terms of information.

There's no easy answer to building loyalty and there's no real short-cuts to building it, but constantly doing wee things like this, or e-mail happy birthday messages and that will all just be slowly chipping away at it. I know the stuff in the East Stand got a bit of a panning (as did everything) when we lost to Airdrie United but it all goes in the same pot as this.

Do the right thing for a long time and it'll work out is probably a solid way to live life tbh, and that's probably the relevant thing here.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

On the whole I think it's a nice/good idea but personally if I'd got an email from the club asking why I wasn't at the last home game I'd be a wee bit WTF 

I'll maybe DM Flow on Twitter beforehand everytime I have to work a Saturday.

[Swami]

3 hours ago, well fan for life said:

Genuinely cracks me up when folk start clutching their pearls over possibly being tracked through means like this when they've willingly handed over every single detail of their life to The Zuck. 

‘Alexa, get me Motherwell’s contact details to submit a complaint. They know too much’. 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

See on a more serious note, is there a way we could bypass the vaccine passport stuff for 15 or 16 of the home games by limiting non OF games to 9,999? Would maybe have to make every game ticketed in case the authorities tried to argue that hypothetically 13,000 folk might try and PATG for a home game against Ross County.

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

Hunner percent. I'll assume all the data permissions and such were done properly because of course they were.

There's some super interesting stuff done across Europe (https://digitalsport.co/how-dutch-club-az-alkmaar-are-using-data-to-drive-engagement-with-their-fans for example, even at 3 years old I think a lot/most clubs are still miles off this) and in a relative sense, e-mail stuff is cheap as f**k for the potential return in terms of information.

There's no easy answer to building loyalty and there's no real short-cuts to building it, but constantly doing wee things like this, or e-mail happy birthday messages and that will all just be slowly chipping away at it. I know the stuff in the East Stand got a bit of a panning (as did everything) when we lost to Airdrie United but it all goes in the same pot as this.

Do the right thing for a long time and it'll work out is probably a solid way to live life tbh, and that's probably the relevant thing here.

That AZ article is great btw.

[thisGRAEME]

4 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

That AZ article is great btw.

Aye. I'm sure there's some more detailed ones kicking about (VVV Venlo maybe?!) doing something similar with astonishing results but I'll be damned if I can find it now. 

As always, there's a very good case for a fully centralised version of all of this, which you'd imagine could be incredibly powerful and valuable but reasons etc.

If you like that as well you'll love how the MLB helped create Disney+: https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9090897/mlb-bam-live-streaming-internet-tv-nhl-hbo-now-espn

[Busta Nut]

1 hour ago, Swami said:

‘Alexa, get me Motherwell’s contact details to submit a complaint. They know too much’. 

They don't answer complaints

 

1 hour ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

See on a more serious note, is there a way we could bypass the vaccine passport stuff for 15 or 16 of the home games by limiting non OF games to 9,999? Would maybe have to make every game ticketed in case the authorities tried to argue that hypothetically 13,000 folk might try and PATG for a home game against Ross County.

I said this on steelmen in work today when someone asked about capacity

 

Quote

I agree we won't break 10K. It's rare we ever do these days. 

I am not sure the authorities will accept that thought if the potential capacity is nearly 14K.  Sure we can limit the capacity but that means ticketing all the games regardless of opponents. .

 

[Phillips455]

The South stand will still be limited and the away team are using it for changing aren't they? Both Dundee and Hibs used it so I doubt we could even have a 10,000+ capacity let alone sell it.

 

Its the away fixtures to the old firm and Edinburgh twins (a d Aberdeen possibly) that would be an issue. The home matches should be fine.

[capt_oats]

21 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I said this on steelmen in work today when someone asked about capacity

Quote

I agree we won't break 10K. It's rare we ever do these days. 

I am not sure the authorities will accept that thought if the potential capacity is nearly 14K.  Sure we can limit the capacity but that means ticketing all the games regardless of opponents. .

 

See, I've always been PATG since 86 but with circumstances being what they are and access to online/e-ticketing being easily available, is making games "all ticket" that much of a big deal?

It'd also feed quite nicely into the whole big data conversation that's going on at the moment if people are just buying in advance on their account and going in having their e-ticket scanned.

Edited September 3, 2021 by capt_oats

[ZX1886]

As far as I’m aware ‘ticket only’ was already the case when we played Dundee so wouldn’t really change much if we limited capacity to 10k.

Edited September 3, 2021 by ZX1886

[capt_oats]

As an aside, I'd probably swerve calling the socially distanced seats the "Covid Section" lads...

Edited September 3, 2021 by capt_oats