This article was published on September 25, 2012

Sports app Squawka brings on ad agency BBH as shareholder


Sports app Squawka brings on ad agency BBH as shareholder

London-based Squawka, the maker of  sports companion apps, has secured a partnership with ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in return for a share of the business.

The deal will give Squawka access to BBH offices globally and Zag, the ventures division of BBH, will help the Squawka management team with marketing, strategy and business operations. The financial aspects of the deal and share purchase have not been disclosed.

With offices around the world, BBH, whose client base includes Audi, Barclays, British Airways, Google, Johnnie Walker, Virgin Media and others, recently announced that they were to become wholly owned by Publicis Groupe – one of the world’s largest advertising and media groups.

That’s not a bad organisation to leverage your marketing management.

Squawka launched in public beta in June this year and has already attracted the eye of advertisers including Gillette, Domino’s and Paddy Power. It’s a web-based second screen experience for viewers of live televised sport.

Fans can look at real-time statistics on the matches and players they are watching, and this information fuels the chat and banter between fans on Squawka’s embedded social platform.

Squawka engaged more than 10,000 football fans during Euro 2012. With that many eyeballs on screens for the service, there’s little question as to why the company is a magnet for big players in advertising.

In August Squawka announced that it is to provide real-time data visualisation for the forthcoming English Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A seasons.

Using Squawka, users can compare teams and players in real time, looking at dozens of different match actions. Using more than 2.9 million possible on-pitch actions, Squawka’s live Player Performance Score can be used to compare the performance of players and teams.

As a web app, the service works on desktop and tablet devices and the company says that native mobile apps are on the way.

Squawka also provide stats and data visualisations for the recently announced Gillette Football Club, a major new partnership between Proctor & Gamble and Google who together have launched a dedicated football channel on YouTube.

Image Credit: Mr T in DC

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