The rivalry between England's Barmy Army and Australia's Fanatics this summer was, at times, as gripping as any action on the field of play during cricket's Npower Ashes series.
Knowledgeable and passionate, the members of unofficial fan groups are some of sport's greatest advocates, but are often overlooked by sponsors. However, significant groups exist in most sports, and, if a brand is prepared to work in partnership with fans and accept an element of risk, it could reap substantial benefits at a fraction of the cost of traditional sponsorship.
In spite of its name, the Barmy Army, is a well-organised and savvy association. Its staff includes a commercial partnerships manager, an advertising sales manager and a media guru. Over the years it has developed relationships with official England partners, such as Npower and Marston's, and it has an enduring relationship with Cockspur rum.
The Barmy Army also works with non-ECB partners, including independent financial adviser Harvesting (UK), online book-maker BlueSQ Bet, and international mobile provider SIM4Travel, while Shredded Wheat supports its Colts youth section.
However, partnering fans through an unofficial fan group, or simply using them to ambush an event carries an element of risk. Heineken successfully crashed the Euro 2004 football tournament by giving Dutch supporters branded cone hats and running a TV campaign giving advice on how to sneak them into stadiums.
Two years later, another beer brand, Bavaria, handed out orange lederhosen to Holland's fans during the FIFA World Cup finals in Germany. On this occasion the tournament organisers failed to see the funny side and threatened wearers with ejection from matches unless they agreed to remove the outfit.
Working with unofficial fan groups can be a cost-effective way of reaching a target market. However, the Barmy Army's professional approach to commercial deals is not replicated across all sports. Tie-ups with other groups tend to be more informal and seldom offer category exclusivity.
Rob Mason, managing director at sponsorship agency SBI, and a Manchester United fan, points to the example of the club's oldest fanzine, Red News. 'Betfair is the official club betting partner, but Red News lists not only Betfair, but also Sporting Bet and Totesport as official sponsors,' he says. 'It also has three travel sponsors - British Airways, Thomson and Expedia.'
Unofficial body England Rugby was founded in 2003, ahead of the team's World Cup triumph, and has since been embraced by the sport's governing body, the RFU. Its website, part of hosting site SportNetwork, attracts up to 225,000 visitors a month during key times of the year, such as the RBS 6 Nations. While it has limited engagement with official England sponsors, it works with smaller brands on an ad hoc basis. Last month, England prop Phil Vickery worked with the group to promote his Raging Bull clothing range.
'Any brand involved in sponsorship should be thinking about the "unofficial" fan groups and how they can engage with them,' says Pippa Collett, managing direct-or of Sponsorship Consulting. 'If you don't pay attention to them, then you risk one of your competitors will join up with them.'
When the Barmy Army decided to run a Fans Ashes, official Ashes partner Npower leapt at the chance to title-sponsor the series (see box). 'Every night Sky Sports News ran an update on how the Fans Ashes matches were developing. We probably got more coverage for that than anything else,' says Npower marketing director, Kevin Peake.
Collett suggests that when backing the supporters, brands should act as diligently and professionally as they would when dealing with official rights-holders. 'Unofficial fan groups are great advocates, but are also the toughest group for brands to crack,' she says. 'Fans won't tolerate brands that don't improve the whole experience. If you don't bring anything to the party, then why are you there?'
Steve Martin, chief executive of M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment, agrees. 'It's targeting a hard-core audience. There is always an element of risk because they will have hard-core views,' he points out. 'If you're going to do it, then I would say not to do it for branding purposes. You need to offer something to the fans and it has to be treated as a long-term partnership.'
With a cumulative monthly circulation of more than 350,000, and an even bigger follow-ing online, fanzines have remained popular for providing coverage that is often better-informed than that in the national press. Sales house Indep-end-ent Football Fanzine Co-operative Media (IFFCOM) works with brands on behalf of publica-tions such as Man United's Red all Over and Sunder-land's A Love Supreme to co-ordinate sponsorship (see box).
The potential of this channel of commun-ication has caught the attention of Euro-pean football's governing body, UEFA, which makes reference on its website to 'new marketing tools that sponsors might have ignored in the past, such as fanzines'.
The rise of online social media has made it easier than ever, not only for like-minded sports fans to connect with each other and share views, but also for brands to reach key influencers. Football clubs' official websites may sit at the heart of their communica-tions strategies, but many supporters prefer unofficial sites free from club PR spin.
'A lot of the big brands can be scared off by the lack of editorial control. How-ever, middle-tier bands, such as Irn-Bru, don't have the budget for big sponsorships, so they are likely to go to a fans group,' says Jeremy Walters of CFCnet.co.uk, an unoffi-cial site for Chelsea fans which attracts 120,000 unique users a month. 'Those will-ing to engage tend to get huge value for money, as there's relatively little compet-ition in that space.' His site carries sponsorship from brands including EA Sports, Thomson Local and BlueSquare.
Rights-holders, such as football clubs, can seem blinkered in their plans to grow their brand overseas, marginalising the local fan base. Engagement between rights-holders and fan groups can pay dividends for both parties, as well as official sponsors.
'We've noticed that the club has really started engaging in recent years,' says Walters. 'When Adidas launched its new kit [in 2007], images were leaked onto the internet. Chelsea called us and asked if we'd remove the photos from our site as they would ruin the big launch. We were happy to do that.'
Partnering with influential supporter groups will not suit every advertiser, and for a brand seeking legitimacy in a sport, the proposition can be a challenging one. However, done well and over a sustained period, tying up with these groups offers an inexpensive way to reach to some of sport's most passionate and loyal advocates.