June 19, 2008 - The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour unveiled the TV and print creative for its landmark global advertising campaign to the international media at an exclusive screening in London.
The :60 and :30 second television advertisements are the pinnacle of the Tour’s multi-million dollar, pioneering global marketing campaign which will also include print and digital advertising, along with viral and community generated elements. In all, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour expects to invest $15 million in the campaign over the course of the next three years.
Over thirty players took part in the film and photographic shoot for the campaign which took place at various locations in Rome, Italy, at the start of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia tournament in May 2008 including Maria Sharapova who initially complained about the WTA’s schedule demands.
In this single largest commitment to promote the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour players in the history of the Tour, a world-class creative team was assembled and led by WPP Group and renowned commercial director Matthieu Mantovani. The advertisements ask the question ‘Looking for a Hero?’ and bills the Tour’s players as superheroes both on and off the court.
The focus of the first round of the creative is to both elevate the star power of the Tour’s athletes and to drive awareness of the Tour’s end of season Sony Ericsson Championships, in Doha, Qatar, where the top eight singles players and top four doubles teams in the world compete for one of the most prized crowns in the sport.
Larry Scott, CEO of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour said: “The multi-platform campaign in many ways crystallizes how far we have come as a sport over the past five years, and everything we mean when we speak about the star power of our athletes and the excitement of women’s professional tennis.”
Serena Williams, one of 10 Sony Ericsson WTA Tour stars who appears in the television commercial said: ‘Women’s tennis is a premier sport for all women athletes, and I think it was a great opportunity to have the best athletes, female athletes, get together and be a part of such a wonderful advertisement. I was really happy to have an opportunity to be in it. I was more than excited to do it.”
Commercial Director, Mantovani said about the athletes, “They possess amazing physical gifts on the court, but equally so off the court in lives that are provocative, glamorous and aspirational in so many ways. It is perhaps simple to point to features from the film world which helped shape and grow that vision but, for me, stylistically, elements of ‘Charlie’s Angels’, ‘Ocean’s 11” and ‘ Mission Impossible’ are reflected in this campaign.”
The first phase of the campaign, including TV, print and digital elements, will begin to run globally beginning at the end of August 2008 through the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships - Doha in November. The campaign’s second phase will launch at the start of the 2009 and continue throughout the season.
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