A Polish club playing in the country's second division scored every fan on how lucky they are for the team, and attendance jumped 42%. Three weeks ago it beat the biggest budgets in the world at Cannes. The idea behind it is available to any brand, including yours.
Wisła Kraków is a proud old football club that's fallen on humbler times, playing in Poland's second division to a fan base that's stayed fiercely loyal anyway. Ahead of this season, the club did something no loyalty program has done. It started measuring luck.
Here's how it works. The club already scans every ticket, and it already tracks its matches in detail, more than 200 live metrics about control, key moments, quality on both sides of the ball. An algorithm crosses the two: which fans were in the building for the good performances? Each fan gets a running Lucky Fan Index, a score for how well the team plays when they, personally, show up.
Then the club made it worth something. The luckiest fans got invited into the VIP zone, treated as part of the team's good fortune. The unluckiest got merchandise discounts and a reason to laugh about it. Either way, showing up became a game, and your seat became part of the story.
Attendance rose 42%, to the highest in the league. And three weeks ago at Cannes Lions, the festival where the world's biggest marketing budgets compete, this second-division club took home six Lions including the Creative Commerce Grand Prix, the first European football club ever to win it.
The club with the smallest budget in the room won by knowing its fans best.
What I love about this story is what it took: no new technology, no new data, no media budget. The ticket scans and match stats were already sitting there. The creative leap was inventing an emotional currency out of them. Fans don't care about "attendance frequency," but they care a lot about being lucky for their club. Wisła found the feeling hiding in its own data and handed it back to the people it belonged to, as status.
That's the idea, and it travels to any business: your data is sitting on an emotional story about your customers. Give it back to them as status, and you'll get more of the behavior you want.
By the numbers
42%. Increase in match attendance, the highest in the league.
200+. Live match metrics behind each fan's luck score.
6. Lions at Cannes three weeks ago, including the Creative Commerce Grand Prix.
First. European football club ever to win that Grand Prix.
Cannes Lions 2026 · club and agency reported results
Where this could show up for you
The pattern is simple: find a behavior you want more of, find the flattering story about it in data you already have, and attach a real privilege. A few translations:
Restaurants and retail: status for presence, not just spend. The regular who shows up every slow Tuesday is a different kind of valuable than the big spender. Give the Tuesday regulars the first taste of the new menu and watch what happens.
CPG and beauty: name your early believers. The customers who bought the weird flavor before it was cool are your trend-readers. Give them first access to the next launch and they become your launch engine.
Banks and insurers: celebrate streaks, not balances. Status for the 12-month savings streak or the claim-free decade. Recognition for behavior, open to everyone, whatever their wealth.
B2B channels: score something besides volume. The mid-size dealer who adopts every new product first and co-markets hardest never wins the trip, the mega-distributor does. A "first believer" tier changes which behavior your whole channel chases.
B2B software and services: turn your health score inside out. You already score accounts internally. Make the flattering half public: power-user status, early-access councils, your most advanced customer on stage at your event.
What to do this week
Write down the three customer behaviors you most want more of. Showing up on slow days, adopting early, referring, forecasting cleanly, renewing without a fight. Then check which of them you can already see in data you have today. My bet is all three. Pick one, invent the currency the way Wisła invented luck, something a customer would feel proud of, and attach one real privilege to it. You could be piloting this in a month, because everything it needs is already in the building.
From the portfolio
A club with a fraction of a big brand's resources built this. That's the encouraging part, and it points at what makes the difference now: the creative read on your own data, and a team that can move on it fast.
FifthRow is how a small team pulls that off. It compresses the research, analysis, and build-out work that usually needs a department into something your existing team runs in days, so an idea like this goes from "wouldn't that be cool" to piloted while the moment's still live. And if you've started doing some of this on your own and keep hitting repeatability or quality walls with ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude, that's the exact gap FifthRow closes.
If you'd like to learn more about FifthRow, reach out and let's connect.
The most inventive growth idea of the year came from a second-division club that just refused to see its data as boring. The same raw material is sitting in your systems right now.
You know the behaviors you want more of. Which one gets its own index this week?
Talk Tuesday,
Jason Hauer
Founder & CEO, HauerX Holdings
jason@hauerX.com
Jason Hauer is the founder and CEO of HauerX Holdings, where he backs and builds a portfolio of AI-native companies that accelerate how businesses grow, operate, and compete. From mid-market to Fortune 500.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Lucky Fan Index?
Wisła Kraków, a Polish second-division football club, scores every fan on how well the team plays when they personally show up. The club already scans every ticket and tracks 200+ live match metrics. An algorithm crosses the two: which fans were in the building for the good performances? Each fan gets a running Lucky Fan Index.
How did the Lucky Fan Index change fan behavior?
The club made luck worth something. The luckiest fans got invited into the VIP zone, treated as part of the team's good fortune. The unluckiest got merchandise discounts and a reason to laugh about it. Attendance rose 42%, to the highest in the league. The club also took home six Lions at Cannes 2026, including the Creative Commerce Grand Prix, the first European football club ever to win it.
What made the idea work with no new technology?
No new tech, no new data, no media budget. The ticket scans and match stats were already sitting there. The creative leap was inventing an emotional currency out of them. Fans don't care about "attendance frequency," but they care a lot about being lucky for their club. Wisła found the feeling hiding in its own data and handed it back to the people it belonged to, as status.
Where else could this pattern apply?
Restaurants and retail: status for presence, not just spend, so slow-Tuesday regulars get first tastes of the new menu. CPG and beauty: name your early believers who bought the weird flavor before it was cool. Banks and insurers: celebrate streaks, not balances (12-month savings streak, claim-free decade). B2B channels: score something besides volume so first-believer tiers change what your channel chases. B2B software: turn your health score inside out with power-user status and early-access councils.
How do I run the Wisła exercise on my own business?
Write down the three customer behaviors you most want more of. Showing up on slow days, adopting early, referring, forecasting cleanly, renewing without a fight. Check which of them you can already see in data you have today. Pick one, invent the currency the way Wisła invented luck (something a customer would feel proud of), and attach one real privilege to it. You could be piloting in a month.
