The two-week feast of tennis has always given brands and businesses the chance to serve up knockout PR campaigns. In fact, you could say they go together like strawberries and cream.
Although the quintessentially British event with over 140 years of tradition and protocol, doesn’t allow players to brand large logos, and attire must always be white. This hasn’t stopped brands from coming up with creative ideas, with this in mind we’ve taken a look at our favourite PR stunts at Wimbledon.
The notorious car brand pulled off a ‘secret chauffeur’ stunt back in 2015, with US tennis legend now turned Wimbledon commentator John McEnroe. It involved two unsuspecting lucky tennis fans being picked up in a Jaguar and driven in style to the ground. The driver pulled over en route to the ground and swapped positions with John McEnroe who took questions and continued the drive to Wimbledon HQ.
The following year Jaguar continued in a similar theme but with comedian Jimmy Carr dressed as a chauffeur who picked up Andy Murray from his home in leafy Surrey.
To celebrate its sponsorship with Wimbledon, the renowned beer brand decided to create a virtual reality app, ‘Perfect Flight’. The idea was based off legendary hawk Rufus who has helped keep pigeons off the courts. The app gave tennis enthusiasts an opportunity to admire and ‘drink in’ Wimbledon’s and London’s skyline, in a 360-degree video from above the courts. Users could fly like Rufus from the comfort of their sofa whilst enjoying Wimbledon’s most iconic sites. The results were clear to see as they received over 2,000 retweets and plenty of new followers.
One word which is commonly associated with Wimbledon is the queue. Every year supporters will come from far and wide to queue for the possibility of getting entry into the championships. In 2015, bathroom retailer Bathstore came up with the idea of ‘QLoo’, described as ‘the ultimate toilet experience’. The QLoo circulated the tournament’s queue and was guarded by ball boys and boy girls who held people’s places in the queue whilst they visited the QLoo.
Not only was the QLoo kitted out with full AstroTurf inside, there was also a streamed live match commentary playing whilst a fragrance of strawberries and cream circulated. The stunt went down a storm and was great for brand visibility and achieved coverage in the national press.
PR stunts can be a great way for your brand to get noticed, if you would like to talk about how a PR stunt could land you onto center court then why not get in touch today.
