Sports network Eurosport explain how fast and actionable consumer insights help them understand niche audiences and drive ad sales.

Eurosport, the pan-European sports network owned and operated by Discovery, Inc., has been leading the pack in sports viewing and analysis since its inception in 1989.

Having become the official “Home of the Olympics” in Europe in 2017 and offering state-of-the-art digital platforms, as well as world-class commentators and contributors, the brand is growing ever stronger.

But when speed and granularity became absolutely crucial to meeting the evolving needs of their ad sales function, the research and insights team decided to try a new approach to gather the information they needed.

The challenge 

Getting actionable insight into niche audiences.

For the research team at Eurosport, having access to relevant and fresh consumer insight is a crucial part of supporting ad sales teams across Europe and Asia.

The team focuses on creating data-driven materials for sales teams to present to potential clients, hoping to engage through key insights.

This means having clear and trustworthy data available both on a large scale and with more granularity.

“We need access to information on large numbers of sectors and industries,” says Alexandre Soubriard, Head of Business and Consumer Insights at Eurosport. “We do have information from a number of data providers, but every now and then we lack insight into a specific sector.”

Looking to land a pitch for one of the big five providers of online food delivery in the UK, the team turned to GWI for fast answers.

The action

Going deeper with custom research.

The team were eager to try something new to gather the data they needed, faster.

In the world of consumer insight, surveys are more valuable than ever, allowing agencies and brands everything they need to fuel successful, targeted campaigns. And the surveys themselves are changing, offering even more opportunities for hyper-targeted insights into key audiences.

With custom research offered through GWI, rather than analyzing large data sets to find what they’re looking for, brands can submit the questions they need quick answers on, yielding reliable results from relevant respondents within as little as 24 hours.

“It sounded like a fantastic idea,” says Alexandre. 

“The immediate benefit is how quickly you get the survey results.”

Having received actionable insight far quicker than before, the team could focus on filling the request for the sales team.

The result

Using faster and more tailored insights to seal a deal.

As long-time users of the platform, the team was no stranger to deep consumer data. But with a request to look into a highly niche audience, they needed to try something new to get the answers they needed.

“One of the key strengths of GWI is that it covers so many sectors and goes really deep into detail."

“But for this specific sector - online food delivery - we were lacking information," Alexandre says. "So it was perfect timing to tap into this new custom research and see whether it would be useful to us.”

Having received the survey results, the team could quickly move on to analysis, pulling key insights for the upcoming pitch and delivering it to the potential client in record time.

“This was a great success,” Alexandre continues. “We had a much higher percentage of self-confirmed Eurosport fans than the general UK brand penetration, making the survey responses highly actionable and relevant for us.”

Having experienced the speed and high quality these surveys offer, the team plans to use the solution regularly in the future.

“It’s how easy it is to use, how quick it is to get the results, and the fact that it’s instantly uploaded to the platform,” says Alexandre.

“In consumer research, the question is always how fast you can get the data across, and that’s a great strength of GWI.”

Sources for stats in top right module: Eurosport