After the pandemic forced the 2020 US Open to take place behind-closed-doors, USTA partner IBM conceived, created and executed a consumer and business-to-business virtual tournament experience in just three months (between June and August) which saw it utilise its Watson Discover, AI, Cloud and NLP systems and skills to create a multi-strand, multi-platform immersive digital experience from a range of data sources (including news archives, the US Open’s own collection, Wikipedia, web and fan input) and player partnerships with Chris Evert and Andy Roddick.
Territory: USA/Global
Agency: IBM Sports & Entertainment Partnerships & IBM iX Studios
Objectives
On 17 June, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) announced that the 2020 US Open would be played behind closed doors and the tournament team briefed partner IBM to pivot to a virtual tournament and provide fans watching from home with an immersive and interactive digital experience.
Tasked to be both ambitious and straightforward, the key objective was to conceive, develop and launch a digital offering for those watching from home which captured influencer and global tennis fan attention and engagement in a way that would ‘stoke rivalries, spark debates and deliver real-time, fact-based insights ahead of any/every match’.
Activation
With 12 weeks to re-imagine the Grand Slam and turn it in to a virtual tournament, teams at IBM Sports & Entertainment Partnerships and IBM iX Studios responded to the brief through a strategy which involved parallel strands called ‘Invent’ and ‘Unveil’ to leverage IBM’s own ‘Watson Discover’, ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI)’ and ‘Natural Language Processing (NLP)’ tools and skills to connect millions of fans globally and enhance their virtual tournament experience.
Invent:
IBM and the USTA designed, developed and launched the first-ever US Open virtual fan experience for online and mobile devices which included the following features:
> ‘Open Questions’ – which used ‘IBM Watson Discovery’ & ‘NLP’ technology to curate seven iconic tennis debates with pro and con arguments within an interactive, participatory debating fan forum.
> ‘Match Insights’ – which also used ‘IBM Watson Discovery’ and self-learning ‘Natural Language Generation’ technology to deliver evolving, fact-based insights on opponents and match-ups ahead of every game played during the course of the tournament.
> ‘AI Sounds’ – which leveraged Watson technology to recreate crowd-sounds captured during the 2019 tournament and then served up crowd reactions based on similar in-match plays/points in the 2020 tournament. AI sounds was available to the USTA and ESPN throughout the entire 2020 tournament to enrich the environment of matches coming from the two main courts.
Unveil:
This strand amplified IBM and USTA reach to engage fans around the world via a social media partnership with former US Open Champions Chris Evert and Andy Roddick which was built around the development of 11 pieces of original content that were rolled out across USTA, IBM and influencer channels. The content was shared through a blend of paid promotion and organic engagement.
The team also developed a ‘Virtual Suite’ to ‘ensure a sense of connection to the tools and tournament’ and create a sense of excitement and fan engagement on social media.
This suite adopted a multi-media format and, as well as tennis fans, it was also used for B2B purposes and engaged 475 clients and potential clients, members of global media organisations, plus several IBM employees from around the world. These B2B clients were connected with tennis legends including Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors, Martina Hingis, as well as Evert and Roddick and given behind-the-scenes US Open digital tours of how IBM’s Cloud, AI, Watson and Security solutions were working to enhance the 2020 tournament experience and showcase how they could be combined with earned, owned and social by IBM to execute various genuine and example business briefs.
The IBM team working on the initiative was led by VP Sports & Entertainment Partnerships Noah Syken, Program Manager Sports & Entertainment Partnerships John Kent, Technical Program Manager Sports & Entertainment Partnerships Tyler Sidell, Marketing Program Director, Sports & Entertainment Partnerships Kristi Kolski, Director Of External Relations Angelena Abate and External Relations Specialist Zoe Hoffman.
Outcome
According to IBM and the USTA the initiative was a major success and, in terms of tennis fan engagement over the two week tournament reached 6.8m online visitors and mobile app users who generated more than 145m page views. While the social media strand – led by Evert and Roddick content – generated 9m video views. The activation’s total reach was more than 100m via original media articles, press interviews, a virtual media tour, syndications and PR.
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.