“VIDEO, A MAJOR TOOL FOR FAN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT”

The AMOS school interviewed Armand FAURE about video and its place in social media marketing.

Armand Faure, speaker for AMOS Bordeaux and founder of the Autowebbb agency specializing in motorsports, offers a range of innovative and diversified services. Attentive to digital innovations, he explains the strategic shift taken thanks to video as a communication tool!

AutoWebbb is a 360° communication agency specialized in motorsport, founded in 2012 by Armand Faure. Concerned to offer a quality digital service for the automotive market, the agency offers expertise and a full range of services.

Autowebbb compiles creativity, sensitivity and strong marketing skills to manage communicating projects with high added value. From consulting to production, from the development of a communication plan to operational management, the agency relies on digital innovations to fuel the diversity of its proposals.

With a projected turnover of 500,000 euros for the year 2019, the agency aims to become a world reference in motorsports communication for the medium / long term!

Can you tell us about your customers?
Motorsport is a sector less covered than football or tennis but the fact remains that awareness needs for teams, brands or drivers. Our customers are motorsport professionals, whether they are teams, drivers, brands or event organizers. We collaborated for example with Sébastien Loeb on the implementation and development of all his e-commerce activity. We work with several teams competing in the endurance world championship and the 24 hours of Le Mans such as REBELLION Racing or TDS Racing and for which we are implementing their communication strategy. Finally, we managed the communication of various French automobile championships (Rallycross and Drift) or trucks on which we design modern and authentic communication plans.

What are the special features of the motorsport sector for AutoWebbb when we compare the needs of the sector with those of other sports?
The duration of motor events remains the main specificity in relation to large media events. Indeed, if the football or basketball matches take place over a few hours, the competitions in which we operate are at least on two full days, the classic scheme being: tests, qualifications and races. If we look at the world’s largest automotive event (the 24 Hours of Le Mans), it is both a race that lasts 24 hours without interruption but also an event taking place over more than two weeks.
The needs in terms of communication are therefore much more important. We have to adapt to it by designing communication devices that meet the organizers’ specifications: knowing how to cover long races, knowing how to work at night, producing unique content in order to enrich the fan experience.

Producing different content involves technological monitoring and anticipating the future needs of your customers: What do you think are the trends for tomorrow?
For several years now, we have noticed a real work on communication clubs and brands. It’s no secret that you have to create engaging content. This content is constantly evolving, as are the various communication media. If we can differentiate ourselves from our competitors, it is because our creativity is based on three principles: mobile friendly, efficiency and animation. So we are using video more and more. Moreover, we know that video will represent more than 80% of internet traffic in the coming years, in a media universe dominated by the production of content on the internet: our strategic choice was a natural choice. The use of video involves two crucial subjects: LIVE communication on the one hand and “customer experience” on the other.

Can you explain these elements to us?
Live communication and video are the two strong trends of the fan experience. The search for ever more relevant and innovative content involves rethinking the communication of sports subjects. Today, we want to live the indoor sports experience: the objective is therefore to offer a unique communication via Live with “inside” and authentic content! Live videos give customers / fans and prospects the opportunity to be fully immersed in the world of the brand. As part of our LIVE communication solutions, we are committed to administer and realize any need and on all existing motorsport meetings so that the fan can follow the sporting event and not miss anything from the competition!
If it is proven that video makes it possible to engage more customers, boost their visibility and generate leads, there is also an animation work to be done on videos intended for social media. You only have to look at the evolution of Instagram stories to understand that editing and video capture have become fundamental: the stories published by clubs or brands are more and more thought out and worked on accordingly, with visuals and animations accomplished, thus offering a real feeling of immersion! We therefore notice an evolution in the marketing process, where we go from the CRM tool to the FRM, Fan Relationship Management. As in the usual CRM tools, the FRM relies on the knowledge of the fan with a clear objective: build loyalty and encourage increased spending!
Adopting these trends means offering effective content to your clients !

How do you express this technological shift in terms of skills and tools within AutoWebbb?
Indeed, following market trends and offering a unique service to our customers involve skills and quality tools! We gained skills in our creative studio and our social media services, but it was time to develop our video services. This has been done since April 2018 with the creation of a video cell integrated into the agency.
In addition, our computer park is renewed so that our creatives are able to work effectively on motion design and video editing. We buy microphones and stabilizers so that our community managers produce quality LIVE videos on events: we produce more and more premium videos and refine our production processes every day.
These few examples of changes are starting a radical shift in order to offer the best communication to the best of motorsport for the next season.

Interview by Laurent Tire, Communication officer, AMOS Bordeaux