Being appointed technology sponsor of the 2015 US Tennis Open in New York City was great.
But the question IBM had for O&M was: How do we talk IBM to fans who have eyes only for Novak and Serena?
Half the answer? Supply fascinating US Open statistics that only IBM, as technology sponsor, could access. More than results. Things like serve speed, distance run, and numbers of aces and foot-faults.
The other half? Create a custom algorithm to mash the live tennis data with hundreds of data points, basically neighbourhood insights, collected from around New York City.
O &M generated hundreds of nuggets of combined tennis and NYC info, wittily animated, and housed on USOpen.org. With 27,000 site visits per day and sharing across social platforms, huge numbers of fans saw IBM’s way with data at first hand, building to 152 million impressions.
Twitter alone experienced 48 million impressions, with a seven times higher engagement rate than the IBM brand benchmark.
Using the love for their sport and city that both fans and New Yorkers feel, O&M built a new, more meaningful connection with IBM. Game, set and match.