“Everything we do, we try to be entertaining. That doesn't just mean making people laugh; it could also be making people feel emotional.” 

Gavin Johnson, Group Media Director at City Football Group, is sharing the importance of entertainment and storytelling in sports marketing and beyond.

Having worked in TV, advertising, and sponsorship at the likes of ITV, Virgin Media and Joe Media, Johnson is passionate about understanding audiences. The red thread between all his roles has been a fundamental belief in the importance of compelling editorial content to connect and resonate with audiences, no matter the subject. 

City Studios is the creative agency at the heart of Manchester City and City Football Group, with a unique vantage point on global fandom through work across clubs including New York City FC, Bahia and Palermo. Responsible for creating strategies, content and stories for leading brands such as PUMA, Amazon, and Etihad Airways, the studio works with brands to deliver ideas that drive conversation and engage audiences at a global scale.

Football, fandom and entertainment 

Following last year’s summer of sport, brands are gearing up to get involved in the array of sporting events this year. In the run-up to the first men's summer World Cup in eight years, Manchester City are points away from Premier League success. It is an exciting time to work at City Studios.

“I think we're in a real golden moment for content across football, across the world, in the Premier League, we deliver the most video views, and we're on track to do it again this year,” says Johnson.

For brands eager to get involved in the exciting moments ahead, the opportunities are plentiful. Yet when the ways to connect with audiences are broad, it can be hard to know where to start. Part of what Johnson and his team are specialised in is understanding the broader football landscape to connect brands with the right opportunity at the right time. 

“Our job is to understand different brands from different sectors. Some are automotive, some are big retail brands like Puma, or airlines like Etihad, who have all got very different briefs. They're all trying to reach a slightly nuanced, different audience,” explains Johnson.

Ensuring the content reaches the right audience at the right time, City Studios pulls on a variety of editorial formats and has access to top talent from teams. The red thread that runs through all campaigns is storytelling and entertainment. 

Johnson explains: “In a world where there is so much noise, there are so many distractions, it’s easy to lose people. Unless you entertain people, people will swipe past you.”

“Football is the core of what we do on a day-to-day basis, but there are a thousand different stories you can tell about football,” he adds. 

Understanding the game

Finding ways to entertain fans means telling stories that they can relate to. To do this requires a deep understanding of football as a game and what it means to be a fan. 

“I grew up in the 80s and the 90s, and football fans actually, at the core haven’t changed that much,” says Johnson. He continues:  “I see what I experienced as a teenager, early 20s, and I see the same things. I have a 14-year-old son. I have a 12-year-old daughter, both of whom are really passionate about football, and they have similar traits.”

Yet while the passion for football is enduring, the platforms consumers engage with the game on have changed irrevocably. As Johnson explains: “It's just the way they consume the content, it's radically changed.”

Reaching fans where they are means pulling on talent and utilising platforms outside of traditional broadcasting. Where City Studios has ownership of the social media feeds of the various clubs City owns and unmatched access to talent, telling new stories on different platforms becomes easier.

Access to talent is important, but Johnson shares that knowing how to engage talent properly to pair them with the best opportunities is key. As well as finding the right influencers and external talent. 

“Players aren't actors. A very small proportion of them are really confident saying lines. So you've got to make sure you understand what gets the best out of talent,” he says, adding: “You've got to play into their strengths, not their weaknesses.”

Johnson and his team look at briefs and match up talent based on interests, language, audience and how comfortable they might be in the various scenarios. “Some are young, some are old. Some are a little bit more serious,” he says. “Some have lots of experience when it comes to external influences.”

When it comes to external influencers, it's important they are aligned and understand football, the audience and the club. Pointing to the example of Celine Dept, who regularly collaborates with city on Instagram and TikTok, the most effective partnerships come from those who have a genuine connection with the players and fans.

Respect for the fans

The word ‘authenticity’ is thrown around a lot when it comes to social media and influencer marketing, but when it comes to engaging with culture, it is more than a marketing buzzword. 

Audiences have a unique, personal relationship with their football teams, with most people supporting the same team for their whole lives, following it through its ups and downs. It is a sacred space and brands don’t always get it right. Johnson points to football chants as an example of when things can go wrong.

“Where you latch on to something which the fans have developed themselves, and try to leap on the back of it because it's trending, that stuff can go the wrong way,” says Johnson.

He continues: “Using fan chants is so authentic to fans that that's, in a way, theirs, that's not ours, it's not the brand. So you gotta be really careful how you do, how you do that.”

Brands have to understand the culture and be invited in, because when fans feel a lack of authenticity, it can be disastrous. 

However, Johnson reassures brands that it can work and that when it does, it reaps big rewards. “As long as you are authentic with how you're doing it, and you're trying to entertain people, and you've got a story to tell,” he says.

Achieving authenticity means telling stories that understand football and its broader position within fans’ lives and in culture. For City Studios, this means telling stories about not just a team but the city it represents. 

“For fans of Palermo from Sicily or fans of Bahia in Brazil. You've got to make it bespoke for each of the territories where we have clubs,” Johnson explains. “If we talk about Manchester or New York. Music is massive in Manchester, fashion is massive. We play with those things a lot and really tap into the DNA of Manchester.”

From collaborations with famous fans like Noel Gallagher for the 30th Anniversary of Definitely Maybe, to inviting the band Blossoms to film a day at the game or Khiara Keating presenting at the MOBOs at Co-op Live, the team is always trying to find unique ways to combine football with other elements of culture. 

The cultural firepower of the women's game

Following the success of the Lionesses at the women’s Euros last summer, the cultural capital of the women’s game is undeniable. Manchester City have been heavily invested in the women’s game. The Joie Stadium sits within the Etihad Campus.

“Manchester City were very much pioneers in the women's game,” says Johnson. “We have amazing partners, with Joie, for example and do lots of really cool collaborations with them.”

Joie is a great example of the array of different types of brands the women’s game is attracting. The brand has launched partnerships with Manchester City in a sector not traditionally associated with sport.

Johnson shares that the women’s game has also been an entry point into the club for other brands such as Revolut, which started off working with just the women’s team before signing on to sponsor the men’s team too. 

“You might think traditionally we start with the men's and maybe upsell to the women's, but actually it's flipped around the other way. It’s brands that really want to get to the women's game and then see that as a great opportunity to reach the audience they want to reach,” says Johnson.

Finding joy in the workplace

For marketers who are fans of football, City Studios might sound like a dream job, but beyond the work, Johnson is passionate about his team and the people. “Great people make any team,” he says, adding; “Manchester City is a hell of a place to work.”

With great people come fresh ideas and the opportunity to innovate. Being open to new ways of working has allowed City Studios to operate in ways traditional agencies might not, putting editorial, entertainment and content first. 

“There's still that challenger brand mentality as an organisation,” says Johnson, he continues: “That's why, when we launched City Studios and this agency that we're building, we see an opportunity to do something really special with not just the brands that we've worked with before.”

City Studios has strong ambitions to work with new brands, find ways to connect brands to new audiences and apply their knowledge of football and fandom to briefs outside of sport. 

“It's a hell of a culture of creativity, hard work, pressure, but also fun as well,” Johnson adds. 

Combining a passion for the game with a prowess for marketing, Johnson and his team show that when you care about what you do, you can create genre-defining work.