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| Roger Federer is among the young stars flexing their muscles. |
The ATP is replacing its edgy “New Balls Please” ad campaign with one that focuses on a wider array of players and features them in muscular, athletic actions.
At a press conference Tuesday on the grounds of the French Open in Paris, the ATP will unveil the ads that its more than 60 tournaments will be free to use and to market their events around.
Four years ago, attempting to introduce a new generation of tennis stars, the ATP titled its campaign “New Balls,” which looked to depict its up-and-comers as sexy, brash stars. Now, with players like Andy Roddick somewhat more established, the men’s tennis group wants to convey the athleticism and emotion of the sport that the group feels gets overlooked beyond core fans.
“People don’t think of tennis players as athletic, passionate and personable,” said David Higdon, the ATP’s vice president of communications. This continually frustrates the sport’s insiders, who argue that male tennis players are among the most athletic sportsmen in the world.
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| Ad designer VML cast Roddick, Philippoussis and other young stars from the tour in silver. |
The ATP spent around $500,000 creating the campaign, including its fee to the designer, Kansas City-based VML, a unit of WPP Group. Tournaments will be responsible for spending their own money to market the images, which are a grainy silver and mercury color. For example, the BNP Paribas Masters, which is hosting Tuesday’s press conference, plans to spend 750,000 euros, which last week converted to $908,000. In North America, the first tournament that will use the creative is in Delray Beach, Fla., the week after the U.S. Open in September. Most of the American summer tournaments already have their marketing programs in line, but the ATP wanted to get the concept out. Higdon predicted up to 70 percent of the ATP’s events would use the creative next year.
The ads, which carry the tag line “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” can be created from simple photographs, so events can use any player they wish in creating marketing material. Delray Beach doesn’t want to use a major star, preferring hometown favorite Vincent Spade, who was ranked 28th in the world last week.
