Adler Mannheim: Creating AI-enabled power plays for fan engagement and loyalty
Scoring a winning goal from targeted fan communications
As the winner of eight national championships, Adler Mannheim is a giant of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, Germany’s professional ice hockey league. Looking to drive deeper loyalty and higher ticket sales, the team sought to deliver targeted communications by using the SAP Customer Experience portfolio, integrated with AI and an SAP Cloud ERP solution. It chose the SAP Engagement Cloud and SAP Commerce Cloud solutions as part of its connected engagement foundation.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Media, sports, and entertainment | Mannheim, Germany | <50 employees |
open rate for pregame communications.
increase in open rates for the fan newsletter.
increase in subscriptions.
Sales and Marketing Director, Adler Mannheim Eishockey Spielbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG
Unearthing deeper fan engagement insights to personalize experiences
Adler Mannheim Eishockey Spielbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG is a world-class professional ice hockey team that competes in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga from its home base at the SAP Arena in Mannheim, Germany. Attracting around 12,500 spectators at each game, Adler Mannheim has won eight German titles while always championing its most important goal of making fans happy.
Adler Mannheim’s success on the ice is underpinned by agile business operations that have been infused with SAP solutions since 1998. This includes the use of SAP Commerce Cloud and SAP Event Ticketing software for e-commerce merchandise and ticketing as critical components in its customer experience strategy. “We consider ourselves the tech lab for SAP,” comments Alexander König, sales and marketing director at Adler Mannheim.
Yet a key element was missing. The ice hockey team needed a way to understand fan engagement at a detailed level to help guide fans to the optimal experience. The marketing team also desired a clear understanding of the lifetime value of its fans to better optimize marketing budget and predict revenue.
To get there, Adler Mannheim focused on repositioning its communications from being seen as marketing to delivering incrementally added value for every fan.
Leader CRM and Ticketing, SAP Arena, Adler Mannheim Eishockey Spielbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG
Unifying fan data to enable personalized, lifecycle-driven engagement
To provide highly personalized communication while increasing fan lifetime value, Adler Mannheim added SAP Cloud ERP and SAP Engagement Cloud to its business landscape.
Using SAP Engagement Cloud, Adler Mannheim gains insights into ticketing, shopping cart, and loyalty data thanks to integrations with SAP Commerce Cloud, the SAP Analytics Cloud solution, Cloud ERP, and the Adler Mannheim Fan App. With connected fan data, Adler Mannheim can deliver highly personalized messaging through automated campaigns across the fan lifecycle that shape the fan experience, making touchpoints tangible and rewarding. This includes each moment from communications to offers, purchases, and beyond.
To bring its vision to life, Adler Mannheim worked closely with SAP Services and Support to implement SAP Engagement Cloud and integrate it with the club’s existing SAP solution landscape. Through close collaboration and design workshops, the teams identified new opportunities for fan engagement, addressed implementation challenges together, and established the connected foundation for personalized fan experiences.
In parallel, Adler Mannheim focused on enabling AI-enabled predictions for future ticket sales. In the past, the marketing team had no method to predict future ticket sales, and at times the team devoted its marketing budget to campaigns based on gut feelings about how ticket sales were progressing.
Instead, by working toward AI-enhanced predictive analytics, the marketing team aims to develop a more evidence-based estimate for future ticket sales, particularly just before the end of the sales period. With this added layer of predictability and confidence, the marketing team can devote budget and resources more strategically, rather than expending effort based on guesswork. When the predicted ticket sales don’t meet expectations, the marketing team can add campaigns such as mailings, social media, retargeting, and special offers.
Likewise, in terms of increasing loyalty through AI-enhanced fan app experiences, Adler Mannheim built the Adler Mannheim Fan App with SAP. Through the mobile app, the marketing team can guide a perfect fan journey over a whole game day. Everything a fan does to engage with Adler Mannheim can be done with the app, including ticketing, being social with other fans, and using location-based services.
Leader CRM and Ticketing, SAP Arena, Adler Mannheim Eishockey Spielbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG
Scoring big wins with fluid omnichannel fan experiences
With the implementation of SAP Engagement Cloud, Adler Mannheim has moved away from generalized, “one-size-fits-all” campaigns to create more personalized messaging. At the same time, the team has successfully automated many merchandising communications through e-commerce integrations infused with AI. What used to be a tedious task is now largely automated and data driven, supported by a connected engagement foundation across SAP Engagement Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, Cloud ERP, SAP Event Ticketing, and SAP Analytics Cloud.
When it comes to driving engagement with fans at the stadium during live games, Adler Mannheim’s marketing team no longer pushes messages to all fans using the app because of the friction it caused fans who weren’t in attendance.
Instead, Adler Mannheim uses ticketing data transferred from Cloud ERP to deliver focused marketing communications. If a fan has a valid ticket, Adler Mannheim knows they are in the arena and can send highly relevant, situation-based communication without relying on location tracking.
With SAP Engagement Cloud, Adler Manheim has also automated personalized newsletters instead of running multiple newsletters for distinct groups of fans, season ticket holders, events, and others. The marketing team uses templates that include AI-supported product recommendations as well as AI-enabled subject-line generation to rapidly ideate and draft subject lines.
As a result, the newsletter has become a direct revenue driver with predictable outcomes based on conversion rates. König adds, “We can see that the more we personalize our newsletters and our communication, the better the feedback is.”
Since adopting SAP Engagement Cloud, the creation of more targeted fan communications has had a direct and positive impact on ticketing and merchandise revenue, with game days delivering higher fan spending across on-site merchandising and catering.
Sales and Marketing Director, Adler Mannheim Eishockey Spielbetriebs GmbH & Co. KG
Looking to the future of fan experiences
The marketing team plans to continue building anticipation and loyalty at every stage of the fan lifecycle, which will help fulfill Adler Mannheim’s vision of being Germany’s ice hockey capital. Adler Mannheim is also looking to expand its AI capabilities with solutions from SAP and Joule Agents.