The Campaign

For over 17 years IBM has been the Official Technology Partner of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open. This year, IBM wanted to find new ways to show that this partnership is more than just a working relationship. It is a living case study demonstrating IBM’s ability to collaborate with organisations to provide the services and infrastructure to meet the dynamic environment of their business. The solution was to focus on the concept ‘information everywhere’. In essence, IBM puts a layer of information, intelligence and meaning around things. It is this layer of information that transforms a simple ball sport into the world-class event that is the Australian Open. We encapsulated this idea in the image of a ‘data ball’ depicting a storm of abstracted data forming a tennis ball. This image became the foundation for an integrated campaign that spanned online, outdoor, print, mobile and video.

Success of the Campaign

Key campaign results included • 380 case study downloads (200 target) • Bluetooth response up 66% (up from 49% in 2009) • 366 mobile case study interactions (up from 188 in 2009) • Online banners click through rate increased 233% from 2009 • 1,525 total downloads of IBM Seer (285% increase on Wimbledon’s 536 downloads) Social media • 5,057 views of IBM Seer YouTube video • 280 IBM Scout Facebook friends • 462 IBM Scout Twitter followers (including notable players) • Over 110 blog posts during the tournament Landing page experience • 75,736 total unique visitors • 103,867 total page views • 34 seconds average time on site • 632 case study views Client satisfaction • 77% of attendees rated the event as ‘excellent’. The remainder selected the second option ‘good’. • 65% of IBM respondents ‘strongly agreed’ the experience enhanced their client relationship. The remainder ‘agreed’.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

The Australian Open runs for two weeks in January. Our campaign strategy was to launch across multiple channels simultaneously with the aim of capturing the customer on their journey to the event, at the event and through contextual media. On January 4, digital and static Out Of Home placements were launched across domestic airport terminals nationally, supported by placements in the Qantas inflight magazine and channel. On January 11, print executions commenced in the Melbourne Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Financial Review (AFR). These included full- and half-page ads as well as multi-page liftouts and sponsored sections. Online placements ran simultaneously on the AFR website. The event itself kicked off on January 18. The IBM marquee was the focal point for advertising activity. It was here that clients could trial the IBM Seer application, watch the ‘data ball’ video and talk through the solutions with IBM.