This post was created in partnership with Roku
Sports fans spend hours following their favorite teams, players, podcasts, and traditions. For brands, those interests create opportunities to connect with consumers long before and after the game.
During an ADWEEK House Advertising HQ fireside chat co-hosted with Roku, Jake Piasecki, co-head of enterprise ad sales at Roku, spoke with Ashley Arena, head of investment at media agency PHD, about how brands can use fandom to build customer loyalty, reach niche audiences, and make media investments work harder.
Finding the right place in fandom
Arena said brands are looking more closely at the interests their customers already have, from sports teams and entertainment franchises to individual creators and celebrities. The goal is to find a natural connection between those interests and the product or service being marketed.
Those connections matter particularly for brands that can’t afford major sports sponsorships. Arena explained that although smaller advertisers may struggle to buy a full NFL or NBA schedule, they can still find deep areas of fan engagement and interest through podcasts, player content, merchandise, and pregame coverage. These opportunities, she said, may offer smaller brands more value for their money than trying to piece together a limited NFL or NBA advertising schedule.
“If you can find those sparks of authenticity within the program, team, or player and build around it, that’s magical for a brand,” Arena added.
For Burger King, a PHD client, timing creates another opportunity. Reaching fans before kickoff, when they’re deciding what to order, may be more useful than during the game.
Making brand partnerships feel authentic
Burger King’s sponsorship of Roku’s new college football zone offers a concrete example. The streaming destination helps viewers find college football matchups, which is sometimes difficult in a world of fragmented media, Piasecki added. This feature gives Burger King a presence as fans prepare to watch.
Arena said college students and football fans are important audiences for Burger King, even though the brand doesn’t currently have official team sponsorships or name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals with athletes.
Football gatherings create a natural occasion for Burger King to promote its food, but Arena emphasized the importance of finding authentic connections that already exist between a brand and the content, team, or players it wants to associate with.
“College fandom goes far beyond the Saturday night games,” Piasecki added. “It’s about the identity with the team, the community, and all the traditions.”
Finding those natural connections requires planning. Arena said her team is working with clients to identify upcoming occasions earlier, leaving more time to develop partnerships that fit the content and audience.
Connecting fandom to business outcomes
Data is also changing how brands evaluate fandom investments. Arena said PHD’s parent company, Omnicom, uses fandom, viewership, and consumption data to build more complete consumer profiles and inform media planning.
Arena explained that advertisers are increasingly interested in identifying customers who will return, rather than measuring only immediate conversions.
Looking ahead, Arena expects increasingly fragmented and personalized viewing habits to create new opportunities. She’s particularly interested in how the 2027 Women’s World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics could build new communities of fans around women’s soccer and emerging Olympic sports.
