#FindTheAdvantage

Background

IBM’s brief had two objectives. One, to demonstrate IBM’s new brand promise (“Let’s put smart to work”) at Wimbledon, where IBM was Official Technology Supplier.

But also to generate business leads for IBM Cloud by being commercially hard-hitting.

Idea

The big challenge in the summer of 2018 was the number of sporting events all coinciding with Wimbledon, such as the football World Cup, Formula 1 at Silverstone, the US Open golf championship and the HSBC Rugby Sevens.

The problem was turned into an opportunity by asking how one sport could find advantage from another. For example, “What if England held their nerve in a penalty shoot-out like tennis players do at championship point?” “What if tennis players reactions were as quick as an F1 driver off the line?” Banner ads asked these questions and drove attention to the relevant Sky Sports videos and articles. For instance, Will Greenwood, Sky rugby pundit and former England star, joined tennis player Mark Petchey to discuss data in their sports.

From there, the parallels between Wimbledon and the broader world of business were made with stories such as ‘From creating cutting edge digital experiences at Wimbledon to upgrading the experience of millions of air passengers’.

Results

Though interest in Wimbledon itself was reduced by 29%* in 2018 because of the clash with other sporting events, #FindTheAdvantage broke through and achieved 3.7 million engagements, an increase of 80% against comparable activity in 2017.

Against the campaign objectives: 32%* of decision-makers, with an influence over technology procurement, recognised the brand line (‘Let’s put smart to work’).

Increased awareness of IBM Cloud translated into leads with a projected ROI of 3:1. However, because business technology decisions take time, ROI is expected to be significantly greater.

Our Thoughts

The fascinating part of this campaign is that it’s IBM showing the All England Lawn Tennis Club that they could be and should be a media business. The never-ending stream of data generated from eighteen courts and hundreds of hours of tennis gives Wimbledon countless opportunities to package their content and send it out to tennis-lovers around the world. Over the last four or five years, IBM has shown Wimbledon how to edit that content and distribute it. This year’s partnership with Sky Sports simply adds broadcast programming to social media.

(#FindTheAdvantage was a trending topic on Twitter.) Along the way, IBM’s own Watson brand has done well from the relationship, thanks in no small measure to Ogilvy, who have demonstrated what it really means to be creative business partner to their client.