UEFA EURO 2012 Expands Digital and Social Outreach to Engage Fans

‘It’s all about you!’ is the rallying cry for the new UEFA.com website, giving fans one-stop shopping for all things UEFA EURO 2012, delivering coverage of the upcoming Union of European Football Associations tournament in 12 languages and confirming the official 23-player squad lists.

Content for all UEFA digital/mobile platforms and publications for more than 160 journalists, correspondents, editors, photographers, coordinators, web producers, translators and interpreters working from eight host cities, combines with innovative features for the final tournament, kicking off June 8, including:

• Customisable MatchCentre - expert commentary, live photos and tweets, videos, polls, statistics, lineups and heat maps and a Tournament Map as an interactive guide to EURO.
• Player Browser - users can compare and contrast the 16 squads and browse the editorial and data profiles of all 368 players
• Facebook, Foursquare, Google+, YouTube and Twitter links, and fans can tweet questions in the continuing #Ask feature that has featured Xavi Hernández, Steve McManaman and Pierluigi Collina.

The International Broadcast Centre in Warsaw is the editorial, coordination and production hub, coordinating with UEFA HB and with ICT for hosting and live applications. The French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish sites are managed from the IBC and produced and monitored at respective agencies in Lyon, Munich, Milan, Lisbon, Riga and Madrid. The Chinese, Japanese and Korean sites will be taking the finals to Asian markets.

Twenty-four reporters and 16 camera crews are following the 16 finalists to provide fans with the live on-the-ground insights and data via text, video, audio and social media.

Sponsored content around the tournament includes giving fans the chance to play McDonald’s Fantasy Football and Hyundai Predictor, vote for Carlsberg Goal of the Day and Man of the Match, follow the race for the adidas Golden Boot, and peruse a rich array of Castrol statistics and view, vote and share in the Canon Photos section.

And in a smart example of branded local marketing around UEFA, Coca-Cola has partnered with ScanLife to place QR codes on all Coca-Cola Classic and Coca-Cola Zero Products in Spain, sending users to UEFA's EURO 2012 videos and Coca-Cola SmileWorld.

"The results we have seen are extremely impressive," said Paco Rodriguez, Digital Manager at Coca-Cola Spain. "Thanks to intelligent QR Codes from the ScanLife platform we are able to constantly surprise our consumers with new content, strengthen our position in the mobile space, and understand what interests our consumers."

The codes can be scanned by any QR Code reader application, like ScanLife (or Bidi in Spain) and with any barcode reader. "The partnership with Coca-Cola shows that barcode scanning with smartphones has reached a global tipping point," said ScanLife CEO Mike Wehrs. "ScanLife's platform adds value by helping brands deliver customized and context-driven content to their customers right from their product, and learn from those interactions."