Great Example Of How Far Women’s Brands Have Come…For the Better…Serena Williams and Tampax

September 22, 2009 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

It was not too long ago, 1997 to be exact, when the WTA Tour, the worldwide governing for women’s tennis, faced an issue of crisis with regard to budget, branding and perception. The Tour, after taking the media power of William Morris for years as the Virginia Slims Tour, was suffering from a lack of identity, and for that matter a lack of sponsors and interest. Octagon and IMG were both tasked to help the Tour, which at this point was in between its young guns on the horizon and its recently retired stars, find a title sponsor to replace the dollars and branding muscle of Virginia Slims. The best option, one that would provide marketing dollars, a healthy lifestyle platform, and the ability to give the Tour room to explore more traditional secondary branding categories, was presented by Octagon…Tampax. By far the leader in feminine hygiene, the brand was looking to take the category out of the traditional area and attach itself to vibrant, global accessible female athletes who could grow with the brand. The dollars would dwarf other potential suitors and could create a revenue stream to help the Tour, which was struggling to find its identity, move forward as a viable sports brand.

Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Brings Fans Into Virtual Battles With The Top Stars…

September 19, 2008 by Joe Favorito · Leave a Comment 

The engagement of the fan with the athlete, whether it is onsite, online or in another area, is always the key component in activation and building in long term support for the brand, the team or the athlete.  Once a fan can connect on a personal basis with the athlete, there is more trust and support in lean times and more emotion in good times.  In team sports, where the athletes are in market for large portions of the year, that connection is much easier to do.  In individual sports, like tennis, golf, volleyball, even auto racing, that connection sometimes is more difficult to do because of the lack of potential physical personal contact.  Now NASCAR has overcome many of those issues with their huge play into retail and television…the athletes are tied to products that consumers purchase and that builds loyalty.  The weekly network TV play also leads into more athletes coming into their homes on a regular basis, and the fact that NASCAR is all North American with its schedule gives the fan a window of tuning in that matches usually with his or her viewing habits.  Golf has some of the same opportunities, and the affinity amongst the male viewer also helps take it to another level of identification.  Golfers on any level can understand the nuances of the game, even if only pros can execute.  So on to tennis…strong grassroots, marketable stars but many non-American and a schedule that plays on a world stage that many times does not match fan viewing patterns no matter where on the globe they live.  The Tour schedules, although much more consistent in years past and with the help of the USTA in the United States have a natural run to the US Open now, still have multiple events on multiple continents on multiple weeks, making identifiablity a problem.  So what to do?  The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour has found a very simple, very unique way to have fans address some of these issues with an online application, where fans take clips of their favorite players, and conduct a mock tennis battle against them using clips of themselves playing tennis.  Challenge Your Hero is a fresh idea, a great new digital application, it lets the fans identify with the player style of their choice and for the top clipmaster, will have the ability to meet their foe face to face at the season-ending championships in Qatar.  It also gives the individual one-on-one sport a digital and visual edge over team sports that few have ever looked at, as this type of challenge probably can’t be equalled by a team sport or any other individual sport.  Well played and well served by the WTA.