Paris 2024 goes for gold with personalized emails for 8M fans.

Personalizing experiences for 8 million fans requires a single view of data.

As over 10,500 elite athletes battled for gold in Paris during the Summer 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Paris 2024 committee faced a different kind of challenge: engaging nearly 8 million fans with tailored, personalized outreach.

Six years earlier, the committee started building a fan database. They gathered data from social media, the corporate website, and ticket purchases, aiming to go beyond basic contact details. They wanted insights into fans' favorite sports, interests, reasons for subscribing, and their roles, whether as volunteers or spectators.

Marie-Alicia Delfour, Customer Relations Manager for Paris 2024, explained, “We targeted a diverse audience, from first-time families and sport federations to regular attendees. Our goal was to provide personalized communication and a seamless experience, including logistical support.”

The challenge was to meet the diverse needs of all fans. Some families purchased tickets for single events, while others attended multiple sports. The committee needed a solution to tailor communications based on each fan's history, reasons for attending, and sports interests.

“At the peak of the Games, we needed to manage interactions with nearly 8 million contacts,” said Delfour. “This required a robust platform capable of handling a high volume of personalized exchanges.”

Organizing committee personalized messages for millions of fans from one view. 

The Salesforce Platform allowed the Paris 2024 committee to create a single view of each of its 8 million fans and create personalized experiences for every attendee and athlete.

In the lead-up to the Games, fans were added to a database through social media engagement, subscribing online, or ticket purchases. Once fans joined the database, they received a welcome email from Journey Builder, followed by a survey to help the committee learn more about their favorite sports and reasons for attending. Based on their answers, fans received tailored greetings, questionnaires, and updates about their favorite sports through 70 different journeys in five languages.

Paris 2024 also used Marketing Cloud to send messages to 5 million fans with announcements about opening ceremonies, the first day to buy tickets, or the launch of programs like the Cultural Olympiad. Throughout the 16 days of the Olympic Games, the organization sent 25.2 million emails and 8.9 million SMS messages.

MuleSoft connects systems for faster athlete accreditation and access to services.

MuleSoft played a key role in making it easy to verify athletes' credentials for access to restricted areas and services. For instance, if a long jumper wanted to book a training session, MuleSoft used data from Paris 2024’s accreditation database (managed by Atos) to confirm access to a track — but not a cycling course. 

MuleSoft also integrated with external systems like Paris 2024’s electronic medical records system (EMR) so athletes could schedule appointments for injuries or therapy during the Games. Integrations with external laundry systems also made it easy for athletes to schedule pickups while staying in the Olympic Village.

Before the Games, MuleSoft helped prevent delays with French Customs by verifying athletes' credentials for bringing in equipment or weapons, such as rifles or pistols. If an athlete couldn’t be verified, the request was rejected before reaching Customs.

MuleSoft even connected weather data from Météo France to the Olympic data feed, enabling organizers to retrieve and report raw weather data according to Games standards for events like sailing.

Tableau gives athletes fine-tuned performance data to improve their skills. 

Salesforce also partnered with athletes like professional wheelchair tennis player Emmanuelle Mörch to analyze her serve using Tableau. By attaching sensors to her joints, chair, tennis ball, and the court, Tableau measured the speed of her serve, body rotation, and ball placement. It then visualized this data to pinpoint specific areas for improvement before the Games and helped Mörch adjust her training to reduce injury risk.

“I was surprised, when looking at the tool, to notice that the pronation of my wrist was not sufficient compared to the other players,” said Mörch. “And that’s something that I didn’t observe at all [before]. This gives me even more ideas [for improvement].”

Every second counts when the eyes of the entire world are turned toward you. With Salesforce’s tools and support, Paris 2024 engaged millions of global fans with personalized experiences, while automating athlete credentialing and support with seamless integrations. Even as challenges arose during the Games, Salesforce Signature Support was there to help the committee manage 48 cases (including eight critical cases) to resolution. 

“The Salesforce Platform augmented our teams,” said Delfour. “The productivity gains were amazing, and the system is robust enough to allow us to do everything we needed to do during the Games.”