Wimbledon's Evolves Its Digital Marketing Strategy With IBM Partner Updates

Digital is the marketing industry's hot topic and All England Lawn Tennis Club have announced new developments ahead of The Championships.

We've spoken a lot about the sports industry and fan engagement in recent weeks, as we interviewed CX and marketing leaders at Ascot Racecourses and the Women's Tennis Association, and shared our top tips on winning fan engagements you should pinch.

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With Wimbledon starting a week from today, it doesn't come as a surprise that the industry's hot topic, digital, is one that takes a prime spot within the marketing strategy of the global Grand Slam event.

In partnership with IBM, which has been working with the All England Lawn Tennis Club since 1990 to introduce technological innovations to The Championships, Wimbledon has announced the following developments to its digital marketing strategy:

• Redesigned wimbledon.com and mobile apps: The new wimbledon.com provides content in context, which encourages fans to dive deeper into the event. With real-time live scores integrated alongside live and on-demand video, infographics and exclusive insights, the redesign by IBM Interactive Experience aims to delivers a uniquely cohesive experience, whether on desktop, tablet or mobile. Available for Apple iPhone, iPad and Android devices, the apps provide instant access to scores, player information, match analysis and video, and now have an offline mode for fans to continue browsing when on-the-go.
• Breaking match stats and insights: Analytics via IBM InfoSphere Streams will identify breaking match facts in near real-time, and Watson Engagement Advisor provides related insights and historical context. Wimbledon staff will be able to pose questions in natural language as if they had the world's best tennis expert on-hand, and share these insights with fans via social media and the Wimbledon digital platforms.
• Personalised player website: IBM has designed a website, built on IBM Bluemix, that will provide players with personalised information about their match schedules. Players will have reports and historical insights about other players, and real-time updates about the tournament information to enhance player engagement and experience throughout The Championships.
• Social engagement: Using IBM's social media analytics and research from IBM's Customer Experience Labs, the Wimbledon Social Command Centre will be able to identify the most influential voices around Wimbledon and tennis, and highlight their social communications for maximum effect.
• Cybersecurity: During The Championships, IBM will detect and block thousands of suspicious events, providing AELTC with a unified view of all security events, and apply real time analytics to rapidly identify and address potential attacks. In the first five months of 2015, IBM observed a 94 per cent increase in the number of cybersecurity events managed by IBM on the wimbledon.com infrastructure compared to the same period in 2014.

Mick Desmond, Commercial & Media Director at the AELTC, said: "With help from IBM, we are providing a world class digital experience with the best real time content to fans of The Championships. This allows them to get closer to all the action across all of Wimbledon's 19 courts, no matter where they are, or what device they're using."