Ambushing ‘Wimbledon Mania’ has become an annual British tradition – remember when supermarket Morrisons renamed its Wimbledon store ‘Murrisons’ and ‘Murraywins’ in 2013 (see case study) – and this year’s tournament piggyback pun winner was surely men’s grooming brand Below the Belt’s billboard for its “Fresh & Dry Balls” talc range using the simple tagline ‘Djockitch’.
Launched on 3 July, the Wimbledon champion inspired the ‘Djockitch?’ digital outdoor, billboard and print ad campaign.
An online poll by Newsworks, the Newspaper Publishing Association’s marketing body, named ‘Djockitch?’ as the clear consumer favourite among all of this year’s Wimbledon-related ads – commanding 79% of the vote.
Executions from official Wimbledon timekeeper Rolex and guerrilla work from Google came a distant second and third in the poll with 8% and 7% respectively.
Below The Belt, a company created by ad man (and former Big Brother contestant) Jonathan Durden, is no stranger to copylines that are close to the edge – after all, the company itself says its products are ‘for those parts of our anatomies which flap about in the dark, chafing & confined in the unventilated wasteland called our pants’.
Durden told Campaign that he conceived the ad during the heatwave in the first week of the Wimbledon Championships, when temperatures reached 36.7 degrees in west London on Wednesday, 1 July.
‘It was done extremely quickly on the hoof. It was such an extremely hot day and Djokovic was about to play… I just thought: ‘I’ve got to make this happen’,’ explains Durden – who conceived the campaign during the heatwave of the first week of this year’s tournament.
‘The joy of digital posters and online is that you can put it out there that quickly. You can go from the idea to execution in one-and-half days.’
Lanson, the official Champagne of Wimbledon, may have been named as the brand generating the best affinity to the tournament but awareness of its official status is low – according to Arc London research.
Ad agency Arc used the Sponsor DNA research tool to analyse brands – both official partners and ambushers – to run the rule in terms of ‘affinity/fit’ and ‘partnership awareness’ and found that Lanson ‘had the closest image correlation’ sharing the strongest brand match in terms of ‘inspiration’, ‘posh’, ‘British’, ‘unique’ and ‘affinity’.
But, on the negative side, only 13% of the research group were aware Lanson was an official property sponsor (the lowest of all the partners measured in the drinks category).
Indeed, official beer and cider sponsor Stella Artois, which ran an innovative ‘Perfect Flight’ campaign (see case study) for its second year as a Wimbledon partner, achieved 24% awareness (although the brand was not generally perceived as being a ‘good fit’ for Wimbledon as it was not seen as ‘family friendly’).
In pure awareness terms it was Robinsons, who’s 2015 campaign revolved around a ‘Great British Ball Hunt’ (see case study), that recorded the highest mark – with an impressive 74% aware of its sponsorship status (perhaps not surprising considering the partnership is 80 years old), and yet while Sponsor DNA found it to be ‘family friendly’ and ‘responsible’ it’s results suggested that the Robinsons brand didn’t fit Wimbledon in terms of event image.
While Evian, the official soft drink sponsor that based its 2015 activation on its #WimbledonWatch concept (see case study), scored reasonably well on Wimbledon partnership awareness (40%) and very well on ‘image correlation’ (80%).
‘Despite Lanson having the closest image correlation with Wimbledon, we are seeing that the secret to awareness and appropriateness is long term investment and after 80 years of investment, Robinson is seen as a truly credible partner despite not having a particularly close brand correlation to Wimbledon,’ commented Arc London account director Liam Hopkins.
Links:
Below The Belt Website:
Lanson Website:
Stella Artois Website:
Robinsons Website:
https://www.robinsonssquash.co.uk/
Evian Website:
Arc London Website:
Wimbledon YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wimbledon
Wimbledon Facebook:
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Wimbledon Snapchat:
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