Alexandra Willis began at Wimbledon more than four years ago with a charge to jump-start the event’s digital presence. Mission accomplished, and then some. Willis today is head of communications, content and digital, for the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, which owns and operates Wimbledon. The event’s organizers have embraced social media, ranging from Facebook to Snapchat, and new for this year will be on-site efforts featuring the queue of fans eager to watch matches as well as a channel on Giphy, the home for GIFs.
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There are these little moments that happen at Wimbledon we can use the GIF format to celebrate. For us, when we think about wanting to go beyond Wimbledon [and] that Wimbledon means more than tennis — and you have got somebody saying, ‘I feel great today. It is Friday,’ and they are using a GIF of Serena Williams celebrating with the trophy here at Wimbledon last year — then that is just [one] way.”
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Photo by: ALL ENGLAND LAWN TENNIS & CROQUET CLUB
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On how Wimbledon has advanced in the social media space: We have tried really to do two things. The first one is to stay very true to who we are, and when you think about social media, authenticity is such an underrated thing, something that is crucial in my opinion. And [second], really thinking about what the purpose of social is for Wimbledon: That it is about bringing people in, it is about reflecting Wimbledon in a way that is the next best thing to being here, but it is doing so in a way that has character, that has a tone of voice, and in a way that embodies a brand that people love and have celebrated — but has always been a bit removed. And so being able to put something with the people to engage with that [that] is a bit more real, rather than this polished traditional reserved Wimbledon, is just something that has resonated with people.
On integrating sponsors into social media: We work with our partners on creating featured content. We have always felt that having content that is more editorially driven rather than more straightforward commercialization would resonate better with our fan base and be more reflective of the Wimbledon experience here on-site.
On this year’s additions: We are trying to sort of expand the on-site social media experience that we have had the last couple of years. [The initiative] is called The Hill Versus The World, which encourages The Hill [a reference to the grassy, hilly area on-site where fans congregate] to interact as a social audience and answer questions about the matches they are watching and contrast their answers to people not at Wimbledon, so The World. We are extending that this year to the queue, so we are using the screens we have along the queue to try and celebrate the queue as an audience in their own right. Given they are standing there for hours on end, we want to try to entertain them.
