EHF, Infront, DAZN and Supponor partner for virtual advertising at European Handball events

EHF 2022 Women’s Euro: Norway vs Sweden Image: Jozo Cabraja/kolektiff

The European Handball Federation (EHF), Infront, DAZN and Supponor have joined forces for the delivery of virtual advertising at the Women’s EHF EURO 2022 tournament in Slovenia, North Macedonia and Montenegro this month.

The partnership, which sees virtual advertising used on the LED perimeter boards on the long-side of the court, is the first virtual advertising deployment in handball and also the first ever Supponor VRT adoption during a women’s event.

The implementation of this technology has allowed Coolbet, an EHF EURO Official Partner, to target key handball audiences during a select number of matches in the main round & final round.

“Coolbet has always been driven by technology” said Endre Nesset, chief executive of Coolbet.

“The virtual advertising solution offered by Infront and EHF maintains the quality we expect as a partner of the event, easily matching the detail of in-venue LED boards.

“It was vital for us to ensure we could target our key handball audience during various national team matches and we’re proud to be part of this evolution in sports marketing.”

“The EHF is very proud to be a pioneer in this space,” said Martin Hausleitner, secretary general of the European Handball Federation.

“Adopting virtual LED replacement technology for the first time during a women’s sports event and in handball is a landmark moment. Our partnership with Infront and their supplier Supponor demonstrates the increasing commercial value of women’s sports. We are looking forward to continuing such collaborations with market leading partners in their respective fields to expand the commercial potential of our prestigious handball events.”

“This is not the first time Infront and Supponor have partnered, this latest project follows our successful collaboration during the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in May this year,” said James Chubb, head of handball at Infront.

“When the opportunity arose for us to deploy virtual advertising at the 2022 Women’s EHF EURO, not only was it logical to expand our partnership with Supponor but it also provided an opportunity to expand the commercial options available for sponsors and further enhance our approach to innovation within our partnership with EHF. We are excited to be able to accommodate our partner Coolbet whilst also exploring more options to add value for EHF.”

The plan is to continue to deploy virtual advertising technology for future EHF events, opening up more opportunities for a tailored approach for sponsors looking to target specific markets, with customised messaging.

“At Supponor we’re incredibly proud to expand our collaboration with Infront as one of the world’s leading sports marketing agencies, and to add the prestigious EHF to our client portfolio” said Massimo Magrì, managing director, Europe, Supponor.

“Adding handball as a new vertical is an amazing opportunity, alongside the inaugural deployment of VRT at a major women’s sport event. We are committed as a business to continuing providing our services to enhance women’s sports, handball, and indoor sports in general globally.

“Our innovative VRT platform, Supponor AIR, has so far enabled us to scale significantly as a business in the past 24 months. Thanks to the strategic partnerships with world leading sports rights holders, and through the transition to purely software based VRT, often operated completely remotely.”