Orange unveils new fan-centred campaign for EURO 2016
The company, which is the official partner of UEFA for all the telecoms-related services of the EURO championships, has launched a new platform which puts the fan at the centre of the game, so to speak, with the help of Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane.
Entitled Orange Sponsors You, the platform is open to all the fans, both in France and abroad, as long as Orange operates in the country. Zidane is onboard as of 29 May to recruit the world’s best supporters. According to Orange, the aim is, instead of putting the spotlight on the players, to give fans the credit they are due for “making events like the UEFA EURO 2016 magical”. Zizou will feature in a TV advertising campaign to be broadcast in 28 countries around the world, and will be combined with a 360° film to be experienced on the www.orangesponsorsyou.com website.
Orange also plans to offer more than 3,000 match tickets, in addition to 20 places for the final to the best fans selected by Zidane.
Moreover, one supporter will be brought to the fore for each game and will be given the title of ‘Fan of the Match’, echoing the ‘Man of the Match’ tag attributed to players.
Also from the beginning of the tournament on 10 June, Orange plans a surprise involving the Eiffel Tower for all the fans using #orangesponsorsyou on the social networks. We will just have to wait and see on this one, but more should be revealed in coming weeks.
Fan zones
Inside the fan zones of Paris, Lyon, Lille, Marseilles, Bordeaux and Toulouse, football addicts will be able to play video games, watch UHD broadcasts of some of the games, and take part in a 360° match simulation, with the ability to shoot at goals on the pitch. And last but not least, subscribers of the company’s pay TV service la TV d’Orange will be able to see a UHD broadcast of some of the games shown on TF1 and M6, including the opening match, the four quarter-finals, the two semi-finals and the final.
The two terrestrial channels were indeed selected by UEFA to broadcast some of the most important games between them, the contract for the overall broadcast of the tournament (every single match) having been awarded to pay TV operator BeinSport, who will be exclusively able to show them all to its subscribers in France.
Beatrice Mandine, chief executive for communication and the Orange brand, remarked: “For us Orange Sponsors You is the opportunity to further help fans connect with their passion. This is what drives us and helps us build our long-term strategy for coming events. UEFA EURO 2016 is only the beginning.”
Telecoms infrastructure
The aim is for the EURO to be “the most connected tournament in the history of the competition”, according to Orange president Stéphane Richard. And the company certainly pulled out all the stops to ensure it would be.
More than 800 technicians and engineers were dedicated to the event over the four years it took to install a 100,000km network of fibre optic cable, enabling it to deliver live match signals from the ten EURO stadiums to broadcasters and fans around the world. The fibre optic networks make it possible to deliver 2 TB/second of traffic. The company also installed 680 connectivity access points around the country inside fan zones, with 270 located in Paris alone. It also established a Wi-Fi network which allows up to 110,000 simultaneous connections. In addition, a special roaming offer will be proposed to tourists, enabling them to access two times more data, calls and SMSs than usual.