Australia’s largest telecommunications and media company is making the most of Australian Open fever through a new campaign promoting its Telstra Air’s free Wi-Fi service that stars former French tennis player Henri Leconte.
In a set of 30-second comic spots launched to coincide with the start of the tournament, Telstra’s TV-led campaign sees Leconte stumble his way through various awkward tennis related misunderstandings all connected to public Wi-Fi communication.
In one clips, Leconte plays ‘Totem Tennis’ and seems impressed by his game and overhears some girls saying ‘he is so hot’ so assumes they are talking about him.
Embarrassingly for Leconte, they are actually live steaming the Australian Open on a mobile device and are discussing a different (younger) player.
Another ad shows the retired player (a former Channel Seven tennis commentator) talking with his family on Wi-Fi and blowing kisses to them – which turns out to be awkward as it looks like he is directing the kisses to a passing woman and a man sat in front of him.
Other commercials include ‘Quiet Please’,
‘Live Commentary’,
and ‘Flat Battery’.
All the clips drive viewers online to find out more about the offering at http://www.telstra.com/freewifi
Comment
The Australian Open is arguably the country’s biggest annual sporting event.
While supporters of the NRL, AFL, the Melbourne Cup (and perhaps now, after this year’s success, even the Big Bash League) might make a good claim, from an international perspective it is the Grand Slam tennis tournament that has the greatest global reach.
So it is little surprise that big Aussie brands like Telstra are keen to leverage interest in the event and run related ambush marketing activity despite not having any official rights.
But it is interesting that an Australian brand like Telstra chose a retired French tennis star to the front the campaign rather than a home-grown sports hero.
Telstra’s approach is markedly different from the more usual Aussie player focused tactic adopted for tournament activation such as Medibank and Thanaso Kokkinakis, Swisse and Leyton Hewitt and even the Australian Defence Force and Sam Groth.
Links
Telstra YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TelstraCorp
Telstra Website:
