There hadn’t been a British winner of the Wimbledon men’s title for 77 years, but on 7/7 Andy Murray finally did it. UK public interest was through the roof.
BBC One’s 17.3m peak audience was the biggest TV event thus far of 2013 and the most watched Wimbledon final since 1990. It is the highest audience for a Wimbledon final since at least 1990.
Within 12 hours of victory his win had been mentioned 3.4m times on Twitter. Little wonder marketers tried to jump on the bandwagon in as close to real-time as possible.
When Murray became the first British man to win the tournament for 77 years, his victory saw his sponsors take to Twitter to celebrate. Sponsors including Adidas, Head and RBS took to Twitter to show their support.
Long-term sponsor RBS Groups tweet said: ‘Congratulations to @Andy_Murray for making history today. We’re immensely proud to have supported you over the last 10 years #DecadeWithAndy’.
Both Adidas and Head tweeted with images using the tagline ‘Wimble Done.’
Clothes sponsor Adidas UK’s tweet said: ‘After the hurt, pain and tears. He came back. Stronger. Faster. Better. #allinformurray the 2013 Wimbledon Champion pic.twitter.com/88sHqXQqmW’.
Racquet sponsor Head’s message read ‘Congratulations @andy_murray – 2013 Wimbledon Champion. pic.twitter.com/LfFO1m53C1’.
Even former sponsor Fred Perry sent a tweet of congratulations.
Wimbledon sponsor Robinsons celebrated by releasing a new version of a 2009 ad: one edited to incorporate Andy Murray’s historic victory at yesterday’s tennis final.
A spokeswoman said Bartle Bogle Hegarty was “finally able” to run the ad, which originally aired in 2009 and features people celebrating a British champion and is accompanied by a voiceover that says, “it will happen again, and we’ll be proud to be part of it”.
The ad has now been updated and ends with the line, “worth the wait wasn’t it?”.
The original brief was to capture the excitement of a British player winning Wimbledon.
The ad brings the anticipation and excitement to life as it captures how the country would react if a Briton were to win Wimbledon.
Robinsons has sponsored Wimbledon since way, way back in 1935 and is the second-oldest partner to the tournament after Slazenger.
An ambush brand which cleverly found a locally relevant way to link to Murray’s win was supermarket chain Morrisons.
At the start of the tournament the UK food retailer Morrisons renamed its Wimbledon store ‘Murrisons’.
By swapping the letters of its name above the shop entrance, it aimed to demonstrate its support for Andy Murray.
Furthermore, the circular piazza outside the supermarket had already been converted into an ad-hoc Murray Mount, complete with deckchairs and a big screen and loudspeakers to transmit the games live.
Then, within a few hours of his historic win, workmen arrived with a mobile scaffold and changed the sign again – to ’Murraywins’.
The retailer immediately tweeted: “Congrats to #Wimbledon Champion @andy_murray! How are you celebrating? We’ve given our store a special makeover.” The Queen, Prime Minister and David Beckham also tweeted Murray, but none of those illustrious, world famous names have a supermarket named after them.
