Sometimes (even after her semi-final defeat) it seemed like all the tennis talk and all the US Open sponsorship spots were focused on just one player – Serena Williams.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising as it was her attempt to become the first woman to win all the Major titles in the same calendar-year since Steffi Graf in 1988 what ensured the women’s final was sold out before the men’s for the first time in the tournament’s history.
For almost two decades she has dominated women’s tennis and she certainly dominated the marketing around the 2015 US Open.
Some campaigns posed Serena-focused questions. Can she beat the women’s all-time total Grand Slam record? Is she the greatest female player ever? (If she was a Carlsberg brand ambassador, the answer would be ‘Probably’).
Indeed, most of the stand-out campaigns at this year’s tournament are those by brands that she endorses, or official tournament sponsor activation that she fronts: from Gatorade’s ’21 Serena’ and Beats By Dre’s ‘Rise’, to Chase’s ‘Master The Open’.
Some are innovative and use cutting-edge platforms, while others adopt a more classic approach to traditional advertising, but all focus on celebrating Serena’s career and paying tribute to her commitment, desire, mental and physical strength.
Indeed, the very title of the Nike 2015 US Open campaign in which she appears could have been written just for her – ‘Steal The Show‘.
And for those who feel they have seen enough of Serena William’s sponsorship work around this year’s US Open, well, you can always resort to seeing almost all of Rafael Nadal via our analysis of his #TommyXNadal ‘Tennis Strip’ tournament-leveraging campaign for Hilfiger.
