BNP Paribas is passionate about tennis and a longstanding sponsor of Roland Garros, the French Open. In 2011, it created We Are Tennis by BNP Paribas, a digital community whose values are about sharing the passion for tennis, generosity and innovation, in order to bring tennis fans closer to the action. 2013 marked the 40-year partnership between the bank and Roland Garros. BNP Paribas wanted to mark this anniversary by doing something remarkable and groundbreaking, bringing We Are Tennis' values to life. There was a lot of conversation surrounding the French Open and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (French No.1 tennis player) on Twitter, so we decided we’d create a campaign that would ‘own’ this conversation. Using Twitter as the platform, we created the ‘Tweet and Shoot’ application – revolutionary new technology which allowed fans to train Tsonga themselves, using a simple Twitter mechanism and a social media controlled robot. The ‘Tweet & Shoot ‘ application was created – a revolutionary new technology which allowed fans to train Tsonga, French No.1 and World No. 8 tennis player through Twitter. It used a simple Twitter mechanism and a social media controlled robot. Why was it relevant to the client & the target audience: BNP Paribas is the first sponsor of tennis worldwide and wants to share its passion for tennis with tennis and sport fans worldwide and share its values along the way (innovation and generosity). With this in mind, the campaign was relevant to both BNP & the target Media Execution: Participants logged onto the Tweet & Shoot website, dragged-and-dropped a tennis ball on a virtual on-screen tennis court, adjusting the position and trajectory of a three-shot combination to challenge Tsonga. These selections were encoded into simple hashtags, sent via tweets to the social media-controlled robot, which was connected to the Internet and Twitter via 3G. Fans could add a personal message of encouragement to Tsonga. On 23rd May, Tsonga took the tennis court to take on Twitter users via the robot, which fired out fans’ shot combinations whilst a commentator read the accompanying tweets. The event was live streamed, allowing fans to tune in and share the fun. We kept tennis fans updated about Tweet & Shoot through the “We Are Tennis by BNP Paribas" platform, a digital community created by BNP Paribas where people globally can share their passion for tennis. Results: Over 2,700 tennis fans participated, with people from all around the world challenging and encouraging Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. There were 5,865 tweets sent using the #tweetandshoot hashtag (25M impressions) and 183,600 views of Tweet & Shoot - which is 12 times the capacity of Roland-Garros’ Centre Court! There were 110 global pieces of press coverage of the event, including Creativity, Campaign, Brand Republic, Campaign Brief, Fast Company, Contagious, GQ. Tweet & Shoot was a first in sport and social media history, breaking technological boundaries.
