Making a Superhero: A new digital hub transforms the way a beloved sports entertainment brand engages its fans.
WOW - Women of Wrestling is a beloved sports entertainment brand known for live events and TV deals: fans love the all-female troupe for their high flying acts as well as the campy villains and heroines they portray. The only program of its kind, WOW came to us looking for new ways to engage fans: the changing media landscape meant fans were looking for more ways to engage with their favorite wrestlers in a digital space.
The world of entertainment must be conversational.
Looking at WOW’s online presence as a whole, we realized we needed not only to revamp WOWE.com, but to come up with a strategy that would leverage WOWE’s existing social media to create an integrated digital ecosystem. What if we could transform WOWE.com into more than a website, we asked? What if we could transform it into the hub of a much larger social network? What if we could turn WOWE.com into the center of a Superhero Universe, a place where wrestling fans engage with their favorite wrestlers anytime and anywhere?
Through market research, stakeholder interviews, and most importantly, fan interviews and surveys, we discovered fans identified with WOW!’s owner, Jeanie Buss, as well the league’s cast of Superheroes—real women who inspired fans to be themselves, be strong and win. Wrestling fans were looking not only for entertaining matches, but for characters they could connect with and root for.
The world’s most beloved Superheroes are role models people idolize and feel connected to and we wanted no less for the Women of WOW! The new digital platform would be a way to promote each wrestler’s unique character, so that she could be known, loved and an inspiration to her fans.
Superheroes are box office draws for a reason.
A entire digital ecosystem centered on WOWE.com was created, including a record-breaking 57 individual social accounts across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were created to drive conversations across the entire WOW! digital ecosystem. Individual profile pages that dove deeper into who each wrestler was as an individuals were created. Video footage, which could be streamed from the site, gave fans the thrill of being able to watch an entire season of matches and the super-human athleticism of the women they trek to live events to see. Behind-the-scenes stories and BuzzFeed-style “listicles” took fans “beyond the ring” to see how the heroes interacted with the community in their off hours.
The new WOWE.com is a digital hub that echoes the thrill and excitement of WOW’s inspiring adrenaline-soaked live events. Fans can engage with their favorite wrestlers year-round, building anticipation before they go to see a live match or after they’ve returned, reliving the death-defying moments they’ve seen in the ring.
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Market research
Brand strategy
Campaign strategy
UI/UX design
Mobile & Web development
Content management system (CMS) design & development
