How Vancouver Canucks upped their score on fan experiences and brand partnerships with Rival Technologies

The Canucks turned to Rival Technologies mobile-first conversational research platform to access real-time insights that were accurate, reliable and equipped them to strategize better

How Vancouver Canucks upped their game on fan experiences and brand partnerships with Rival Technologies

Brad-Pennefather-speaker-headshot
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Before using Rival’s technology, we didn’t have an easy way of engaging a significant number of our fans in a timely manner. Now we have a community that can give us rich feedback quickly and easily.”

Brad Pennefather

Former Vice President, Membership and Business Intelligence
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33%

Response rate in just 6 minutes

85%

Of community members are under the age of 40: 74% are male

5000+

Fans recruited exclusively via social media

About the Canucks

Canucks Sports & Entertainment is a premiere sports and entertainment company in North America. It owns and operates the Vancouver Canucks (a National Hockey League Team) and its home arena, Rogers Arena.

about-canucks

The Challenge

Wanting a better understanding of their fan experience and the factors that drove conversions to season ticket holders, Vancouver Canucks needed real-time, in stadium feedback during games. They recognized their reliance on post-event recollections skewed data accuracy, reliability and the insights derived thereof, highlighting the need for a solution. 

With the lack of any online panel or insight community to tap into for measuring ongoing engagement, getting instant feedback was proving to be a real bottleneck in their experience research, and they wanted to overcome this fast.

Their objectives were clear:

  • Get a deeper understanding of all areas of the fan experience at games, including theme nights, intermission entertainment, and food and beverage options 
  • Measure the effectiveness of activations to help brand partners improve their campaigns 
  • Hear real-time feedback from fans regardless of whether they are watching in the arena or from home 
Fan experience market research and conversational surveys for real-time fan insights and feedback

The Solution

The Canucks partnered with Rival Technologies to leverage its mobile-first conversational research platform. In just a few weeks, the team built and recruited an insight community of more than 5,000 fans through social media. 

Rival was easily able to meet Canucks’ demographic criteria: 85% of community members were under 40 years of age, and 74% were males. The team was extremely happy with the sample presented. 

Results

By partnering with Rival Technologies, Canucks achieved their objective by obtaining real-time insights that would allow them to better their fan experience and enhance their brand partnerships.

A few notable examples:

- Conversational surveys helped the Canucks uncover the drivers that led to ticket purchase. Using surveys to measure the impact of different theme nights, the team got exposed to people’s awareness of these special events, as well as what people liked and disliked about them.

- Surveys helped measure sponsor recall—providing both Canucks and its sponsors actionable feedback on creating campaigns that betters fan experience and boosts partner awareness.

Improve the fan experience

Chat with one of our experts to learn how an insight community can help you improve the customer or fan experience.