30/06/2016

AELTC Balances Tradition & Modernity In Wimbledon ‘In Pursuit of Greatness’ Campaign

June saw The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) launch a flagship, multi-platform excitement and engagement campaign – ‘In Pursuit Of Greatness’ – to deepen loyalty and broaden Wimbledon’s global fan base by focusing on how the legendary tournament balances tradition and modernity.

 

This objective is reflected both in the campaign’s messaging and its media and marketing channels: both of which neatly balance on-site experiences and traditional advertising with digital, social and a set of new technologies.

 

With a combined focus on tournament traditions and quintessential British values, plus cutting edge engagement through old score outdoor and the latest technology, the aims is to bring the Championships to a wider and more global audience than ever before.

 

Indeed, the campaign title, ‘In The Pursuit of Greatness’, aims to act as a corporate and global mission statement with more international appeal.

 

In addition to appealing to potential fans in other parts of the world (particularly North and South America and Asia), the fresh approach also aims to engage a younger generation of fans and even fans of other sports.

 

Wimbledon 2016’s marketing and event offering initially focuses on pre-event anticipation and excitement in a mo nth-long build-up phase, before shifting to offering fans around the world more opportunities to engage with the tournament and enjoy live action and in-event content.

 

This spans more media channels than ever before: with new elements spanning traditional platforms such as outdoor billboards and broadcast partnership promos, with digital channels, mobile apps and most contemporary social media outlets: including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.

 

Balancing tradition with innovation, the campaign begin with a series of pre-event online films – linked under the ‘Pursuing Greatness’ title – to start to ramp up the pre tournament excitement with a focus on excellence in preparation.

 

The launch film, called ‘The Pursuit Begins’, was posted on the official Wimbledon YouTube channel on 14 June (nearly two weeks before the first ball was served).

 

 

Further films in the ‘Pursuit Of….’ then rolled out – each typically focusing on a different aspect of the Championships and offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of the professional preparation.

 

These included ‘The Groundsman’,

 

 

‘Painting the Lines,’

 

 

‘The List’,

 

 

‘The Ball Boy’,

 

 

‘The English Garden’,

 

 

and ‘Rufus the Hawk’.

 

 

The films and other campaign content are also deployed across the property owner’s other media channels, along with other ‘In Pursuit…’ strands such as in-tournament social animations

 

 

and the ‘If…’ social series.

 

 

‘Perhaps there was complacency, but the vision just wasn’t there to take the brand beyond the site before,’ explains AELTC head of comms, content and digital Alexandra Willis.

 

‘We realised we didn’t want to get 10 years down the line and people don’t watch TV anymore and therefore nobody is interacting or watching Wimbledon. We have to bring in the younger demographic now so we don’t have a problem further down the line.’

 

Working with agency Space, the AELTC ‘Pursuit Of Greatness’ campaign continues in a live experience format on-site and on-route to welcome fans to Wimbledon itself.

 

The AELTC has worked with Space for the past five Wimbledon tournaments and the 2016 campaign connects the property owner’s global excitement and anticipation building ‘In Pursuit of Greatness’ programme for fans as they journey to and arrive at SW19.

 

This phase of work is led by tennis legends and current stars, plus the officials and staff who all make Wimbledon great and emphasises the importance of continual improvements in the 50 weeks of preparation each year to create the perfect event for players and visitors.

 

It spans inspirational messaging across a set of outdoor media placements that include a billboard featuring featuring a floored Djokovic image alongside the tagline ‘If perfection takes time… but can pass in an instant’ and another showing a coin toss and a fan checking the Wimbledon app with the line ‘If tradition is respected… as much as innovation’.

 

These outdoor ads are supported by site-specific activations at the two main railways stations for ticket holders travelling to the tennis (Wimbledon and Southfields) and traditional outdoor media, plus free standing displays, structural walkways and gateway arches along the (in)famous Wimbledon queue.

 

 

This outdoor activity also includes signage providing directions to ensure fans can easily find their way.

 

’We want to create anticipation and buzz among our visitors from the moment they arrive in SW19. Space has once again taken some of the iconic Wimbledon moments and teamed them with the traditions and the behind-the-scenes heroes who make the tournament happen leveraging our global positioning of “In Pursuit of Greatness”, comments AELTC head of marketing and commercial James Ralley.

 

While David Atkinson, managing partner at Space, adds: ‘We are privileged to continue our relationship with the AELTC. The agency has leveraged the new ‘In Pursuit of Greatness’ brand platform to create a campaign that evidences the many areas that the AELTC focus on to continually improve The Championships.’

 

The digital side if Wimbledon 2016 marketing is multi-pronged, but led by Wimbledon’s 25-year partnership with IBM,

 

 

The latest additional advancements in the combined AELTC and IBM offering span everything from a completely redesigned website, a new Apple TV app, fresh, responsive and personalisable iOS and Android apps and the first ‘Cognitive Command Center’, IBM Watson-powered real-time breaking news advancements and enhanced cybersecurity and social media engagement strands.

 

The smart and stylish new, interactive Wimbledon.com features more live video and content than ever before.

 

To increase contextual relevance on its social media channels and during matches, Wimbledon will also be using IBM’s Cognitive Command Centre for the first time this year – powered by IBM’s cognitive and hybrid cloud technology to understand global social media feeds automatically and learn about the most relevant and emerging topics of conversation as they break and their relevance to tennis.

 

This centre essentially acts as Wimbledon’s social media hub: gathering all the relevant news and information from all tournament relevant events and networks to ensure fans the best and most timely content.

 

This also sees IBM collect over three million data points from every match throughout the tournament and offer even more up-to-date, real-time tennis insights

 

 

and historical information.

 

 

Plus, with Wi-Fi still something of a challenge at the Wimbledon grounds, a new ‘Plan Your Visit’ feature on the app identifies first time visitors as opposed to regular ticket holders – thus allowing the property owner to offer up personalised content and tips, and to track the consumer journey regardless of whether a user is connected to the internet at the grounds.

 

2016 sees Wimbledon work with Apple TV for the first time via an app that includes both live matches and three different radio broadcasts (the Wimbledon radio listener audience rose by 2 million to 16 million during the 2015 tournament).

 

It aims to enhance the at-home fan experience by enabling users to sort through live  scores, video and picture imagery, as well as some live Wimbledon television studio shows.

 

The Wimbledon app, which Willis says could encompass a chat bot for next year’s tournament, is most importantly creating loyalty.

 

‘While the digital audience is still dominated by dotcom usage, which represents about 70%, I’d say the other 30% using the app are more engaged and they are driving 65% of our total engagement and views,’ says Willis.

 

‘The shift to apps makes perfect sense for us to drive loyalty among the next generation.’

 

Wimbledon is also growing globally through other strands such as a new WeChat game devised for Chinese audiences.

 

2016 also sees a move towards more responsive content, while Wimbledon is doubling its Live Stories on Snapchat from two to four this year.

 

 

Other AELTC activation offerings for this year’s tournament saw Wimbledon add a Snapchat-inspired ‘Create Your Own Story’ element to its app – thus enabling users to share personalised picture-based videos of their experience across social media.

 

Plus there is a new partnership with UEFA as the two properties aim to ‘mutually attract viewers’ to both Euro 2016 and Wimbledon 2016.

 

This UEFA partnership sees the two events promoting one another during the overlapping Euro 2016 and Wimbledon tournaments.

 

‘In an age of changing consumer behaviour it isn’t about being a fan of one thing anymore. You can be die-hard football fan but also interested in the Super Bowl,’ Willis explains.

 

‘We want to tap into those events and see if we can do something. UEFA is just the start as we’ve also talked to the NFL and NBA. Hopefully in the future we can do more with football and golf too.’

The 2016 primary focus is on ensuring the brand appeals in the USA, but following tournament’s will begin to concentrate further afield in regions such as Asia and South America.

 

Despite this embrace of new technology and new partnerships, there remains a fierce AELTC commitment to authenticity.

 

‘We haven’t jumped on the bandwagon on some things as quickly as others, sure. But it has all been about reminding ourselves of the uniqueness of individual channels and only using them to better tell our story,’ explains Willis.

 

‘If it doesn’t feel authentic, then what’s the point? The public will fall out of love with the tradition of Wimbledon if we jump too quickly on the bandwagon, as other sports have done.’

 

Comment

 

From the traditional Pimms and strawberries and cream offering, to strict rules outlawing non-white player clothing, the traditions and quintessential British qualities of Wimbledon are seen by some as hindering international appeal.

 

But the truth is the while a decade ago the tournament was somewhat static, in recent years it has been changing and adapting at a fairly rapid rate.

 

Indeed, this 2016 strategy largely builds on the previous year’s new tech successes.

 

After all, 2015 saw the number of visits to the Wimbledon mobile website up 125% to 5.6 million, while Facebook ‘likes’ grew 55% to 3.3 million and Twitter ‘followers’ swelled up 74% to 2.2 million and Periscope followers grew to 500,000.

 

 

One successful strand of its 2015 work was airing live footage on social media – with Facebook video views up 1,120% in 2015.

 

This has led the AELTC to, despite its strong and long partnership with primary broadcaster BBC, adopt a ‘never say never’ attitude to broadcasting full matches on social sites like Twitter or Facebook.

 

Wimbledon will double its Live Stories on Snapchat from two to four for this year’s tournament and will be broadcasting more behind-the-scenes footage on video blogs like Periscope.

 

The move towards more responsive content creation follows success last year – when one single clip of David Beckham catching a ball in the royal box generating 10 million views at last year’s tournament.

 

Links

 

Wimbledon YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/wimbledon

 

Wimbledon Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Wimbledon

 

Wimbledon Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Wimbledon

@Wimbledon

 

Wimbledon Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/wimbledon/

 

Wimbledon Snapchat:

add Wimbledon

 

Wimbledon Google+:

https://plus.google.com/+Wimbledon

 

Wimbledon Web:

http://www.wimbledon.com/



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