Fever Pitch

Design the new mobile app of FC Internazionale Milano

The beginning and the challenge

Team games find their raison d’être in passion and mutual understanding within athletes and between them and their supporters. Clubs do their best to keep this fire burning bright and reinforce the relation. In a context where the technological opportunities are increasing, and the people’s expectations are changing accordingly, the primary challenge is always staying up to date, anticipate the upcoming trends and offer involving and new ways to stay close and participate.

F.C. Internazionale Milano needed a new mobile app in its digital ecosystem that could become the club’s official voice in a scenario of a plurality of unofficial apps and websites owned by fans.

66000 downloads in the first 12 hours

We understand passion very well because it is the bedrock of every meaningful design project. We have proposed to the Club a proposal focused on the supporters, their peculiar needs, their urgency to remain constantly up to date and the plurality of situations and context where they can live their passion for the Club.

So it has begun.

Put the foundation stone of the project

A design project is also a learning process shared between the client and the design team. That’s why, before the research and the design phase, we have set together with the Club a shared vision of the project and the role of the app in the various ecosystem of Inter.

The Inter App should have had the important role to be, at the same time, the Inter’s voice in talking to each of its fans in a personal way, and to deliver a customised experience while creating a long-term and valuable relationship with fans as a community (and its micro-communities).

Inter first

There is no design without knowledge. The second phase of the project focused on collecting information concerning the relationship between the supporters and the Club, the team, the events and the places where this relation is hosted.

We have collected a broad database with a survey that involved more than 20.000 in 11 different Countries, a field research to directly interview the fans at the stadium during some matches, at the cafè or in the Inter Clubs, and, finally, a workshop with representatives of some Italian Inter Clubs.

The research phase gave back some meaningful insight on the way different kind of supporter live their relationship with the Club.

Passion is real only when shared
An Inter match is always an experience to be lived together, wherever the fans choose to watch it from at the stadium, with their friends at home or in the Inter Clubs. There’s a group of supporters who regularly go the stadium, but for the majority of Inter fans is an occasional experience.The type and importance of the match determine the choice. Supporters are more focused on watching the game. If at the stadium, they occasionally take pictures to keep for themselves.

We followed fans before, during and after the match and for her/his whole week. It’s interesting how some of their behaviors and activities might change according to the approaching of the date of the match date and different locations.

When the hunger for news bites
Supporter used to rely on the official website of the Club to consult the match schedule and buy tickets. For rumours, fresh news, gossips, etc. Italian fans don’t care the source of that information: unofficial websites, facebook pages, WhatsApp chats…they have to know. The reliability of the news is inversely proportional to the distance from Milan: fans abroad strive for reliable news, especially during the transfer market season. For any need, the smartphone is the king.

“The app talks straight to me, giving me the information I need and I like (tailored content), when I need it (push content), all in a single place, one touch away.”

A first release and a roadmap to evolve

As the design process began, together with content and technological assessments, we understood that it was mandatory to have a dual focus on the project: Design and develop a strong first release of the app, while enabling a firm technological enhancement, while setting an evolution roadmap to continuously release new engaging features over time

The development of the app, we have partnered with Vidiemme Consulting, a software development born in 2004 and our technological partner.

Build the foundations of the digital future of Inter

Designing and developing the new Inter-application, is leading the way to a digital transformation not only for the front end but for the whole ecosystem. The Inter App is meant to be released by steps, following the strategy to create a continuous improvement of the relationship with each user, and the availability of technologies to support new features and enhancements. The IT implementation roadmap is part of the design strategy and will be future-friendly to let new products, features and services leverage on this technology.

The Inter app features will be developed side by side with the new capabilities, to create the foundations of the service for the user and the basics for letting Inter understand and cluster a different kind of users.The App is designed to be scalable, to improve over time with new features. The first release will set the foundations to start a process of user onboarding & registration, create a substantial user-base, give consistent information for the different user needs, deliver key features to launch a coherent and valuable product.

Explore
The app main page is based on a card-like content flow, to engage users in a friendly way that reminds a social network user interface and content flow.This approach is willing to create a scalable interface, able to add any content in the future and give a sense of freshness and richness in content from the first app launch.

Notify
The app is meant to be the perfect companion for the different kind of fans, reaching them right when they need to, turning the relationship from a classic pull to a push model. That allows Inter to communicate important and dedicated news and information, based on user needs and content selection.

Learn
One of the missions of the App is to profile users over time, to be able to enrich CRM data and engage each fan with the best possible content. From the very beginning, Inter mobile App will gather user data through the configuration page that will be the first step to set up personal preferences and settings of the app. That is just the first phase of the user data gathering that will be enhanced with other capabilities over time.

This flow illustrates the logic behind the content personalization provided by the app. The fan is able to benefits of exclusive and dedicated content based on country, language and time and shaped by the Inter Official Content Factory.

Participate
Ticketing is one of the sections reachable from the menu and from specific cards in the explore content flow. When tickets are available users also receive push notifications to be driven straight to the ticket page, to maximise traffic on the final page, right when the information becomes relevant. The live match section is the core of the app experience while the game is on. With the new push notification system, it keeps the fan up-to-date.

Evolve, Grow, Include

The app has been designed to easily change in time to quickly evolve with new releases and features while enhancing technological capabilities. The new features will follow the vision of building a direct and strong relationship with the brand, creating new communication tools (chatbot) to deliver content, new ways to gather user data enriching Inter database and creating new company units to support this process.

Leverage on the unique value of the app
The chance to develop a long-lasting and valuable relationship with the fan base gives the Inter mobile app the unique opportunity to differentiate the App business model from the other digital and physical platforms.The App is the always-on brand experience of Inter, dedicated to its fan community and its micro-community ecosystem, such as Inter Clubs.