BNP Paribas Open Media & Marketing Dir Philippe Dore (@BNPPARIBASOPEN) is approaching his first year in his role with the event after spending 1 1/2 years as a consultant. He helped launch a new campaign called “Full Bloom” to promote this year’s tournament, which is just under six weeks away, as well as the flowers and palm trees that line the grounds at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Dore said of what fans can expect on social and digital media, “We try to bring a unique perspective, from our point of view. We know that people know they will get their scores and their results, their schedules and some stories on other platforms. That’s great. The more people that are talking about us the better. What I challenge my team is to come up with content other people cannot do. We have access to the players, we have access to the site, let’s bring it to the fans.” He added, “This is our time and we have all the access.”
New app:
The app should launch in mid-February. It is a companion to the event. We partnered with YinzCam. They have a lot of out-of-the-box features such as integration with Waze, Uber and Lyft. We are going to be adding that. We will have scoring alerts, so you can follow your favorite players. All the key information about the restaurants and dining at the venue and ticketing integration.
Getting ready for the tournament socially and digitally:
They are key channels for us, we will be capitalizing on the campaign there as well. We will be creating some graphics that will have the “Full Bloom” theme, will have a content plan and we are working with the Tour for player access, coordinating with the whole industry, really. We work with the players, their agents, their (equipment) manufacturers, our sponsors. We are having those decisions now. We’ll be ready to tell the stories, whether it is the old guard like Federer and Nadal to the new ones coming up.
Capitalizing on the event’s different feel:
We are different, and we like it that way. We have our own personality. What we would like to do is to continue to demonstrate that to the fans, whether it’s highlighting our stadium plaza where we have an 80-foot-wide screen where people like to sit in Adirondack chairs; whether it’s promoting our restaurants -- we have a lot of award-winning chefs. Social is key for us to take people behind the scenes and let them see what we have.
Platform for success:
They all serve a different purpose and we like it that way. Our Instagram will highlight the venue and photos, the flowers and palm trees. So, we try to zero in on that. Twitter is more up to the minute and we use it for more frequent posts and match action. It’s a little bit more vibrant. Facebook is always a key driver at this time of year when we need to promote tickets and venue and travel packages. During the event it turns more into the stories that are happening. We did some fun stuff with Snapchat last year and experiments with Periscope, so we continue to make sure we are where the fans are and give them a glimpse of what we are about.
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