The world’s most famous tennis tournament may have been cancelled this year, but the All England Club (AELTC) launched a campaign on 10 June aimed at maintaining engagement with an interest in ‘Wimbledon’ despite the absence of on court action.
Rights-owner AELTC’s initiative is built around some of the most memorable moments and traditions of The Championships through its 42-year-old history.
Seeking to celebrate the 2020 Wimbledon fortnight in the absence of the tournament itself and running primarily across digital and social media, the campaign sets out to re-tell some of the greatest matches, players and incidents.
The campaign started with a ‘Wimbledon Recreated’ video, narrated by tournament commentator Andrew Cotter, features some of the world’s top tennis players: including defending Wimbledon champions Novak Djokovic (kneeling down in his own garden to recreate his trademark grass-eating gesture after winning the title on Wimbledon’s hallowed lawns) and Simona Halep (walking through her house pretending it is the halls of the AELTC) and 23-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams (plus plenty of other players, former players and fans at home).
The spot encourages tennis fans to upload their own images of recreating the Wimbledon experience: “Help us recreate Wimbledon this year by sending us your favourite traditions and moments using the hashtag #WimbledonRecreated Facebook: facebook.com/wimbledon Twitter: @Wimbledon Instagram: @wimbledon TikTok: @wimbledon”.
Being apart doesn't mean you can't play your part.
Introducing #WimbledonRecreated, with the help of a few familiar faces… pic.twitter.com/BrmIvyKEKK
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) June 11, 2020
Then from Monday 29 June to 12 July, the campaign’s second phase will retell of some of the best Wimbledon matches in history with work hosted on wimbledon.com (supported by statistics, photo galleries and features).
Another strand of the campaign will feature ‘a gaming experiment’ on Facebook revolving around a bespoke version of retro computer game Tetris.
“We will all be feeling the absence of The Championships this year, but we hope, through Wimbledon Recreated, to go some small way to filling the gap,” said AELTC Chief Executive Richard Lewis. “It won’t be as good as the real thing, but we hope it will be an opportunity for us to come together even though we are apart, to demonstrate that Wimbledon is for everyone, in any way you choose to celebrate it – playing tennis, eating strawberries, or just a really good picnic.”
“We didn’t want to lose momentum for what we’ve been doing with the brand,” added AELTC Head Of Communications, Content and Digital Alexandra Willis. “We wanted to create some content for our audiences and tap into the passion for the tournament, which will be much missed this year. One objective is to increase tennis participation in Britain, which usually spikes around the Championships,” said Willis. The AELTC is working with British tennis’ governing body, the LTA, to this end. It is understood the LTA will be running its own campaign w/c 22 June, and the two bodies are liaising to create a combined message supporting tennis.
Comment:
It was on 1 April, 2020 that he AELTC announced the cancellation of this year’s Wimbledon Championships due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Fortunately the AELTC, unlike so many other tennis tournament and sports event organisers, had already taken out insurance specifically covering epidemics which helped cut the financial losses from the cancellation.
This year’s campaign follows on from 2019’s ‘Join The Story’ initiative (see case study) and the 2020 campaign sees the property owner again work with Livewire Sport (albeit on a significantly lower budget than last year).
Links:
Wimbledon / AELTC
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wimbledon
https://www.facebook.com/wimbledon
https://www.instagram.com/wimbledon/
McCann
Livewire Sport
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