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Timbers, still thinking differently, roll out video game, emojis

Having sold out every home game since joining MLS in 2011, the Portland Timbers didn’t need market research this past winter to let them know the club was well-received in the Pacific Northwest.

But Cory Dolich, the team’s senior vice president of business operations and marketing, said the club still felt it could do more — to engage its current fans, as well as attract possible new fans.

The emoji pack debuted in May and has had 20,000-plus users.
Rather than roll out another digital or outdoor ad campaign, though, the Timbers opted for an interactive approach. And in so doing, they created two MLS firsts this season: the league’s first team-developed, web-based video game, and its first team-branded emoji pack.

“In our experience, when we have done things that you might define as a little different, they have worked really well for us,” said Dolich, noting past efforts that include a mobile-based game the team unveiled in its inaugural season. “Nothing against those traditional approaches, but we wanted to do something that had a low barrier to entry but also was engaging. While it’s still early, the numbers are supporting that.”

The Timbers came up with the ideas for both the emojis and the game, which is called “Set Piece,” during the offseason. For assistance on the development side, they worked with two Portland agencies: Sticky Co. and Instrument.

The emoji pack, titled “Two-Stick: Timbers Messenger,” is available for both Android and iOS systems. Dolich said it has had more than 20,000 users since its May debut, with more than 100,000 individual uses of the 40 available emojis tracked to date. 

“Set Piece,” which mimics the “Tetris” video game, launched earlier this month and had seen more than 15,000 unique users and more than 20,000 plays as of last week. According to the team, fans are spending an average of more than 5 1/2 minutes with the game, which is more time than fans typically have spent on visits to the team’s website.

Dolich points to the game’s accessibility as a reason for its early popularity.

The “Set Piece” game mimics “Tetris.”
“Especially with the game, we didn’t want to have to make people download it or only be able to play it with a keyboard and mouse. You can just go to the URL and start playing,” he said, adding that more than two-thirds of the users thus far have come from mobile devices.

Dolich said there are already plans to add to the number of Timbers-themed emojis that are available, as well as to add new features to the game to keep up its usage as well.

While he noted that the club made an investment in order to roll out both new features this season, he said it was not spending any more money of its budget on fan outreach than it might have in previous years, declining to provide exact figures.

“It is a significant investment, but at the same time, with the breadth and the scope of who we’re able to reach, as well as the amount of time people are spending with these two, we feel like it is justified,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re a big believer in trying to think about things differently.”

League officials have taken note of the Timbers’ efforts, as well.

“It is important that we provide MLS fans with best-in-class digital experiences, and one of the ways we can do that is to have various teams test out different products and technologies,” said Chris Schlosser, senior vice president of MLS Digital. “If something works for one club, we can then look at expanding that across the league to more clubs.”

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