You may not associate the quintessentially English Wimbledon Tennis Championships with leading edge digital marketing techniques, but last year Wimbledon introduced some innovative digital marketing and new social media campaigns. As the 2017 championships begins next Monday we thought we would reminisce on a few lessons learnt from digital marketing in 2016.
Mobile App
The introduction of the new ‘Plan Your Visit’ feature on the mobile app helped identify first time visitors as opposed to regulars. This allowed the brand to personalise content for the user and offer tips throughout the day even without an internet connection.
Apple TV
Wimbledon worked with Apple TV for the first time using an app that encompassed both live matches and radio to allow fans greater viewing opportunities.
Social Media
To increase contextual relevance on its social media channels and during matches, Wimbledon will also be using IBM’s Cognitive Command Centre for the first time. The intelligent technology helped to automatically understand, reason and learn the most relevant and emerging topics of conversation as they break and their relevance to tennis so they can create actionable insights. This enabled Wimbledon to form and engage with the tournament on more digital channels than ever before.
Live Q&A with the stars
In 2016, Andy Murray did a live stream on Facebook which went down a storm with almost 2 million viewers. Live streaming is cost effective and immediately personal, so might be worth a try with your business. It’s not often you see Andy Murray bearing all, but this hit a new personal level with fans. You can find out more about Live Streaming Here.
Virtual Reality
Facebook Virtual Reality gave fans the chance to relive the top moments of the season in 360 Virtual Reality offering the audience a fully immersive experience. You can view more uses on the Facebook 360 page.
Daily Podcast
Podcasting has been around for some time and appears to be going from strength to strength as it provides a great opportunity for exposure. The Wimbledon daily podcast featured on their Facebook page and got great traction.
Custom Profile Picture
I am sure you will have seen custom profile pictures across your newsfeed for numerous sports teams, events and causes. Facebook’s ‘game face’ custom profile generator can embellish any profile picture. For Wimbledon fans, they could add a temporary profile pictures featuring the Wimbledon branding and all things tennis. See GameFace if you want to find out more.
We can’t wait to see what Wimbledon brings this year in terms of digital marketing and hope they step up the game further. If you are a fan enjoy the next two weeks of tennis, strawberry’s and cream starting this Monday.
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