Cortina 2021: the platform to experience the emotions of the Alpine World Ski Championships

In 2019 Fondazione Cortina 2021 decided to rely on the expertise and on the vision of IQUII to boost the development, the growth and the enhancement of the Cortina 2021 brand. Moreover, the aim was to strengthen the communication model, giving all the fans an immersive experience ahead of the Alpine World Ski Championships. 

Maximising the Engagement of the community, by improving the event experience of all the Ski passionates, has been the main challenge. Fans have been assisted throughout the entire path leading to the competition, the so-called #roadtoCortina2021. The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and the prevention measures taken to fight the virus forced the federal bodies to organise the event behind closed doors. Therefore, IQUII has strategically reoriented its role, in order to transform the critical issues into opportunities. Digital tools will strengthen the emotions fostered by the event.

IQUII is the Official Digital Provider of  Cortina 2021. Our support is based on two essential pillars: technology and strategy. IQUII’s aim has been to implement a full digitalization of the event, building an innovative Engagement model for the Alpine World Ski Championships. The latter will be the first global event ever to be attended by the fans only digitally and remotely. 

The three-year partnership deal, inked in 2019, became a reality through the development of the website, a Fondazione Cortina 2021 proprietary touchpoint. Through this channel, Fondazione Cortina 2021 can deliver exclusive contents dealing with the sporting event – starting from the behind-the-scenes up to the presentation of the host city and of the local area. In addition, the website allows the event’s partners to have new awareness opportunities

Later on, a new touchpoint has been added to the digital channels developed within the project. The Cortina 2021 Official App gives the fans the opportunity to live a customized and immersive experience. 

The platform has been developed using the SportXP framework, owned by IQUII, in order to enable Fondazione Cortina 2021 to integrate all the physical and digital touchpoints through a middleware technology. The mobile app turns into a strategic tool, that integrates data flows from different sources, held by various partners.
The Organising Committee can easily deliver all the contents to the fans while being provided with a centralized view of all the data collected over the time through all the touchpoints. At the same time, data flow coming from a dedicated situation room fills up the Infomobility section, in which staff members (the only ones allowed at the event) can be updated in real time about status and position of the various public shuttles, weather, traffic situation and get information about Points Of Interest, such as anti-Covid centres, EV recharge totems or other premises.

Thanks to the above mentioned Sport Platform, Fondazione Cortina gets the opportunity to make an excellent use of all the data regarding the fanbase. Such data will be useful to activate increasingly customized strategies, which will be tailored to the user’s profiles.

The final step has been represented by the integration of Fanize, the Loyalty and Fan Engagement platform developed by IQUII. Fanize aims to turn ski enthusiasts into the real protagonists of the World Championship. Fans will find themselves in the atmosphere of the Dolomites through the mechanics of engaging gamification such as live quiz, instant win, micro games, surveys.

Thanks to Fanize all the users can collect points and improve their status through profiling actions and games. What’s more, they have the chance to win prizes provided by Fondazione Cortina 2021, its Partners and by Italian ski stakeholders.

The latest released version of the Cortina 2021 Official App allows Ski enthusiasts to:

• Get access to news, photos and media contents dealing with the event and the #roadtoCortina2021;
• check the races’ schedule (from February 8th to February 21st), gaining insights about the ski slopes;
• Play with the Instant Win, participate in live quizzes, micro games, surveys and win prizes from the Cortina 2021 catalogue;
• Stay up to date with all the contents published on social media through the Social Wall section;
• Attend the event through the voice of the Cortina 2021 Speakers, thanks to the in-app streaming, straight from the Parterre;
• Daily experience the emotions of the World Championships ritual: the bib draw;
• Remotely take part in press conferences with the race’s best skiers, asking them questions through the live-chat; 
• Staff Members can get access to the infomobility section, which provides information about public transports of the local area

We gave our support also providing the Communications Strategy: the Strategy Unit focused its work on three macro tasks:

1. Brand Storytelling;
2. SEO & ASO Audit, Data visualization;
3. Partnership activation.

Our support in the Cortina 2021 brand storytelling started with a data driven approach. After an in-depth analysis of the collected data, the Strategy Team organised the entire storytelling process. An integration of online and offline activities, including the proprietary platforms and the Social Media accounts, has been carried out. 

2019 – Over the first partnership year, all the users learned the values of Fondazione Cortina 2021 through the platform’s features. Fans got the opportunity to interact with the two event’s ambassadors, Sofia Goggia and Kristian Ghedina. Thanks to the two skiers, Cortina’s citizens and ski enthusiasts have been constantly in touch with the event. The Cortina 2021 brand based its identity on the dialogue with the users. At the end of the year, Corty, the brand’s official mascot, was introduced in the event’s narration. Corty became the storyteller of the #RoadToCortina2021.  

2020 – At the beginning of the year, IQUII launched the App Cortina 2020 using interactive formats on Facebook, with Corty as main character. The content was a video animation that allowed the users to interact and decide which path Corty had to follow in order to visit the different sections of the official app. The same dynamics could be found in the Instagram Stories, where Corty engaged the users through a game. Here, the users had to protect the app, since a snowcat wanted to steal it from Corty. 

Alongside the launch of the app, the strategy team gave its support in the development of ad strategies on Facebook and Google, planning campaigns and creating assets (both video and graphics) with the purpose of increasing the number of App downloads.  

Between February and March, the team had to radically change its strategy because of the spread of the pandemic, which led to an event behind closed doors. Creativity shaped new ways of Engagement. As a consequence, the Strategy Unit carried on the storytelling activity. Corty allowed the team to get in touch with a younger audience: children. In fact, the team created the animation story of the Pied Piper, narrated by Corty within the “Casa Buonanotte” Project. 

From a chronological point of view, the latest step has been made 100 days before the beginning of the event, when a teaser strategy (both organic and paid) has been put in place. This helped to generate hype around the Alpine World Ski Championships.

• Social Total Impressions: 27 MIO;
• Total Video Views: 1,1 MIO;
• Average Engagement Rate: 5,8%
• Website Unique Visitors: 172k.

The daily SEO and ASO Audit activity, carried out by the team, allowed the digital platforms of Cortina 2021 to keep high-performing results. The aim was to monitor the keyword positioning and to strategically work on the growth, both on Search Engines and on the App stores. A detailed monitoring activity has been done, involving the Strategy and the Development Units. Today the Cortina 2021 brand appears in the first search pages with the main keywords dealing with the competition and the winter sports.   

Considering the data-driven approach, the strategy team needed to collect and display the  data in the best way possible. To improve the output of the report, the team set up some Google Data Studio dashboards and worked on their customization, so that all the units involved in the project could have a state-of-the-art overview of the KPIs. 

• Total app download: 8,5k;
• Fanize App Engagement: 110k.

Another crucial aspect has been the activation of partnership deals involving brands that have invested in Fondazione Cortina 2021. At an early stage, IQUII assisted the event’s partners in their positioning process within the sport platform. Right after, IQUII was appointed to carry out the partnership activations. In order to enhance the partnerships, IQUII’s team included the following in-app features:

• Quizzes
• ASK
• Surveys
• Missions

Through the above mentioned features, the Fondazione Cortina 2021 partners became the protagonists of the project’s storytelling, planning Fan Engagement initiatives based on Gamification and Rewarding mechanics. The latter allowed a strong connection between brands and users, thanks to the mediation of Cortina 2021.

Last but not least, the team’s work on the activations has been focused on the contents. Enhancing the customer’s assets and shaping stories to offer visibility to the partner: these have been the main aims.  

The development of the two user-friendly platforms, highly integrated with each other, has led to the following outcomes:

• Allowing fans and users to fully experience the emotions fostered by a relevant event, such as the Alpine World Ski Championships, maximising their engagement.
• Consente al comitato organizzatore di valorizzare i dati della fanbase, centralizzando le informazioni ottenute da parte dei tifosi, garantendo un’esperienza personalizzata;
• Allowing the organising committee to enhance all the data about the fanbase, centralising the information collected by the fans and ensuring a tailor-made experience. 

Allowing Fondazione Cortina 2021 to add value to the relationship with commercial partners. The latter have their own section within the platforms: a prize catalogue enables the sponsors to get in touch with potential new customers.

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