From classic sponsor campaigns by major partner Kia and official bookie William Hill, to innovative activations like ANZ’s immersive VR ‘Breakpoint‘ experience, vitamin sponsor Blackmore’s AI ‘Well Bot’ and payments partner MasterCard’s ‘Tap Tennis’ game and ‘Happiness Metre’, plus athlete ambassador work like the Serena Williams led #DoItForYourself social spot series from Berlei, The Australian Open is one of the year’s first top tier global events and thus offers early insights into what become the key 2017 leverage trends.
One of the stand-out trends at this year’s tournament sees Australian Open campaigns – from Tennis Australia’s late 2016 tournament ‘AO’ new brand identity and fresh logo (see case study) to official sponsors and associated sports brands – focus on engaging with younger audiences and millennial demographics.
The Australian Open, the first tennis grand slam of the year, is not just worth $280m to the economy of its home state Victoria but it is also one of Asia-Pacific’s top sports events.
So it is little surprise that a healthy roster of commercial partners, sports marketers, brands with tennis endorsers, as well as the government, hotels and restaurants are all commercially leveraging the event.
New developments this year stretch right across the tennis property landscape: from Twitter adding to its sports rights with a live-streaming partnership with Tennis Australia and broadcaster Seven West Media, to the Emirates-backed debut of the fan smartphone-controlled robotic augmented reality BriziCam at the Rod Laver Arena,
Emirates brings fan-controlled cameras by @brizi at this year's @AustralianOpen #AusOpen #sportsbiz #sportstech https://t.co/k0c7dVyNzS
— SportBizInsider (@SportBizInsider) January 16, 2017
and the launch of Mikori Games’ ‘First Person Tennis’ simulator developed for the HTC Vive VR set.
Comment:
So if the Australian Open’s sponsor activation, partner leverage work and associated sportsbiz and endorser campaigns do offer early insights into 2017 leverage trends, then it seems we can expect plenty of artificial intelligence, bots, social media streaming, fan-controlled devices, utility tools and virtual reality in the coming months. Bring it on!
In addition to ‘major sponsor’ Kia and sponsors Blackmores, MasterCard and William Hill, the Australian Open 2017’s corporate partnership roster includes sponsors ANZ, Jacobs Creek and Rolex, plus partners Accor Hotels, Aperol Spritz, Canadian Club, Coca-Cola, Coopers, CPA, Emirates, Frabntelle, Haagen-Dazs, Hisense, IBM, K&L Gates, Lavazza, Medibank, City Of Melbourne, Optus, Toshiba, Wilson, Woolworths and Yonex.
Links:
Australian Open
http://www.ausopen.com/
https://twitter.com/australianopen
https://www.instagram.com/australianopen/
https://www.facebook.com/AustralianOpen
