Enhancing the drama of biathlon with digital
The International Biathlon Union (IBU) is the international governing body of the sport of biathlon with headquarters in Salzburg, Austria.
Case IBU
The Challenge
Rooted in Nordic skiing traditions, the biathlon - a combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting - has earnt a reputation as one of the most dramatic winter sports contests. Despite its popularity, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) is still heavily grounded in the world of analog broadcasting. Wanting to reach a larger audience, the IBU identified a need to create engaging experiences for fans in the digital realm.
The Solution
To concretise the value creation and value capture through digital we were engaged on creating the customer experience concept and themes based on the strategy work already done. The CX concept needed to be aligned with the overall digital strategy but we quickly recognised that we need to first to focus on rebuilding the IBU digital touchpoints from a fan engagement perspective. With this focus we can cater to both existing hard core biathlon fans and also onboard completely new fans to the sport.
WIth the value creation themes validated with the IBU board we started working on the concrete UX for both an application (completely new for IBU) and renewing the website around the core engagement features. In the concept phase we understood the enabler for continuous fan engagement is the app so the most of our effort was focused on that.
Based on the actual previous season and its competitions we started building pixel-perfect prototypes and validating them with enthusiastic fans sourced via the IBU in remote testing sessions. Based on multiple rounds of user testing and validation we were sure that the designs were ready for development.
Numbers
Over 30 moderated and unmoderated user tests to validate the concept before building anything. The average score by test users of our application prototype: 8/10.
Done in collaboration with:
Award-winner
This case was awarded in Grand One 2022 Competition in two categories: Grand Prix/Services, and Best Mobile Service. Grand One is a competition in marketing communication and digital service development in Finland.
