‘Play Your Way’, the first wave of Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) work by the right’s holder’s recently appointed agency The & Partnership London, is a campaign seeking to encourage people from all walks of life and all abilities to pick up a racket this summer.
Launched on 22 June, the objective of this drive is to increase tennis participation after the coronavirus lockdown and it acts as a commitment to opening tennis up to the nation and address misconceptions about the sport.
Each summer, tennis rises up the sports agenda in the UK as Wimbledon fever lures people out onto court. But this year, with the pandemic lockdown to emerge from and no Wimbledon for the first time ever, the LTA aims to inspire people of all abilities, age, location and background to pick up a racket and play however they want.
The campaign approach is to use a range of emotive and nostalgic vignettes of tennis balls being smashed, lost and then found all set amidst a backdrop of modern Britain in an attempt to tackle long-lasting legacy (and, according to the LTA, perceived) misconceptions of the elitism and lack of access associated with the sport.
The creative sees balls bouncing off garage doors, splashing into canals and even stuck in the rafters of Centre Court and aims to enable the audience to transpose themselves into each moment, without judgement, and seeks to leave the viewer wanting to join the fun of playing their way.
The campaign launches with a hero spot which seeks to show that anyone of any ability can play tennis in order to try and create a more inclusive world around tennis that welcomes all styles of playing.
In order to further raise awareness and visibility of the sport, the LTA will also support the campaign with advertising on TV, online, digital targeting across search and social media, a presence across national broadcast channels and ambient media formats across Out of Home sites and in communities throughout the country.
“We felt that the best way to encourage people to play was to take the stigma out of not being very good,” explained executive creative director, The&Partnership London Yan Elliot. “Our message is clear; get out there and give it all you’ve got. If it happens to stay in the court, then so much the better, but don’t stress about it. Just play your way.”.
LTA Marketing and Commercial Director Richard Daish commented: “Tennis has always been a fun, engaging sport, but not everyone feels like they can play. Play Your Way will show that tennis can be played in any way, by any one, no matter their experience or understanding of the game. The campaign gives us a chance to drive people to the entry points of tennis.”
The campaign emerged from script to shoot in just 12 days and The & Partnership London and Outsider teams took a documentary style approach in order to navigate their way through the evolving lockdown restrictions (and the British summer weather) and achieved two days of filming across 25 different locations.
The creative approach mixes of wide angle, close-up and drone shots, plus some smart CGI and sound design, all enabling the team to capture the broad span of Britain society – even some of those harder to reach places which tennis balls themselves so often manage to find.
The campaign was brief by a team at the LTA which included CEO Scott Lloyd, COO Julie Porter, Marketing & Commercial Director Richard Daish, Head Of Brand Marketing Ruth Hooper, PR Manager Laetitia Redbond and Social Media Manager David Macdonald Watson.
The work was conceived and created by creative agency The&Partnership London where the team was led by CEO Sarah Golding, Executive Creative Director Yan Elliott , Creative Director Angus Vine, Creatives Ludo Thomas and Arthur Harry,
Head Of Integrated Production Charles Crisp, Senior Integrated Producer Anthony Borkett, Producer Angus Lees, Chief Strategy Officer Emily Harlock, Senior Planner Isabel Day, Managing Director Steve Parker, Senior Account Director Chris Boshier, Account Manager Rebecca Geheran, PR Managing Director Sarah White, PR Account Manager Sarah Dewe-Mathews and PR Account Executive Becky Steel.
The production company was Outsider with Director Chris Balmond, Executive Producer Paul Mcpadden, First Assistant Director Julian Higgs, Lighting Cameraman Eoin Mcloughlin, Editor Matt Chodan @ Gorilla, Casting Director Ali Fearnley and Location Manager Tom Reeves.
Post production was by Jam FX with Producer Evren Olgun-Knight, Colourist Dave Ludlum, VFX Supervisor Peter Young, with sound by Big Kahuna and Sound Designer Scott Little. The voiceover artist was Guz Khan.
Media was run by The Kite Factory with CEO Robin Trust, Managing Director James Smith, Business Director Anthony Abou-Zeid, Account Director Hannah Saunders, Business Manager Hamish Colville and Digital Planner/Buyer Patrick Beswick.
Comment:
Wimbledon might be cancelled this year (see our case study on the AELTC’s ‘Wimbledon Recreated’ campaign), this initiative will have to work hard to help maintain the usual summer spike in UK tennis, let alone grow participation numbers further.
‘Play Your Way’ is essentially an invitation to anyone and everyone and we admire the objective of celebrating individualism and welcoming all playing styles and thus reversing years of perceived tennis polarisation, elitism and rule enforcement.
Fundamentally, this is a campaign aimed at encouraging tennis participation at any level by anyone and shows a fresh perspective of tennis which hasn’t been seen before.
It follows on from the LTA’s previous 2016 ‘Go Hit It’ campaign (see case study).
It is a touch unfortunate that the campaign launched within hours of the news media awash with stories about Novak Djokovic testing positive for COVID-19, along with several other players and coaches, during the Adria Tour which he himself organised amidst much controversy.
Links:
LTA
https://www.youtube.com/user/britishtennislta
https://twitter.com/britishtennis
https://www.facebook.com/britishtennislta
The & Partnership
https://theandpartnership.com/gb/
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