All Things Tennis: The Canadian Open Issue
Barilla's Ad with Federer. Leylah Taking Over Off-The-Court. Serena's Next Chapter.
On Today’s Agenda:
Federer Partners with Barilla To Make Young Athlete’s Dream Come True
Fernandez Shines in Numerous Campaigns During Canadian Open
Tennis G.O.A.T. Takes on a New Challenge – Venture Capital
Love of The Game… and Pasta
Federer Partners with Barilla To Make Young Athlete’s Dream Come True
By AJ Hewish
20 grand slams and 103 ATP singles titles. Easily one of the GOATs of the game, Roger Federer is still perfecting a sportsman's life. Recently, Federer has shown his talent off the court with his partnership and collaboration with Barilla pasta, starring in ads that hit right in the heart, make you laugh, and most importantly for Barilla, make your mouth water.
Now for a little backstory for his first ad. Federer was asked by a young tennis player at a press conference to keep playing for 8-9 years so he could play against him when he grows up. Barilla took fantastic advantage of this blast from the past. As this young player, Zizou, is in Zurich to train, he eats at a local restaurant, with Federer behind the scenes watching on as fans cheer Zizou’s name, the waiter calls him by name, and the chef asks for a selfie while wearing a shirt printed with Zizou’s face. The focus is all on Zizou as he walks onto the court to face his training opponent: Roger Federer.
Ending the game with the fans, finally getting to play against his idol, the ad ends simply with Barilla’s logo and the headline: A Sign of Love.
The ad encompasses what sport is all about: fun, emotion, excitement, passion, and so much more, but all while promoting their own product, pasta. How do they do it?
Barilla has done brilliantly with this ad. Making this young tennis player’s dream come true to play against an all-time great in the sport and his idol whom he met so many years ago. But by setting the scene at a restaurant with a beautifully made Barilla pasta dish in the background, the audience subconsciously creates the connection of love, passion, humour, and emotion of sport with their iconic and famous pasta.
You wouldn’t think this was a commercial about pasta, and that’s what Barilla intended. By taking the attention away from the pasta and focusing on more emotional and humourous themes, you actually pay attention to the video (rather than skipping the video like most of us do…come on, we all do it), and with that associate Barilla with the emotions and laughter throughout the ad.
Now, it isn’t enough just to use Federer in this one ad, no. It was so nice, they had to do it twice. In another Barilla ad, Federer faces off 1v1 against a professional chef, cooking the same pasta dish we see in the Zizou ad. Showing close-ups of the process of cooking the perfect pasta dish (using Barilla pasta of course), the two professionals are the masters of their roles, one a tennis legend and the other a professional chef, associating their legacy with the legacy of Barilla.
In sports marketing, it’s easy to use athletes to promote sports products as it's what they use on a daily basis. You wouldn’t typically expect a tennis legend to promote a pasta brand, but the means by which these ads are executed makes the delivery and reception near flawless.
Leylah Fernandez Takes Over Partnerships for the Canadian Open
Fernandez Shines in Numerous Campaigns During Canadian Open
By Christopher Nascimento
With the Canadian Open, currently branded as the National Bank Open presented by Rogers (ca-ching), taking place the stars of tennis flocked to both Montreal and Toronto to compete on the court. Going into these events it can be difficult to decipher which athletes will come out on top, however, off the court is a different story.
It was over before it started when it came to which tennis star would hold reign regarding off-the-court partnerships. No, we aren’t referring to the legendary Serena Williams who announced her retirement but it was Canada’s own, Leylah Fernandez. Before entering the event you’d come face to face with Leylah. No, not actually. But, she was on the buses, the metro, and billboards, the point is she was everywhere, and rightfully so.
With sports being one of the largest psychographics, it’s clear why brands would want to align themselves with an asset within sports. However, over the last little while, it’s become clear that strategies are changing and brands are walking away from the major-4 sports in North America. No one made this clearer than Gatorade when they dropped the NHL to focus their attention on a new vertical in sports.
The first steps in Gatorade’s new strategy were taken when they launched their first major campaign since dropping the NHL and one of their commercials featured, Leylah. With Gatorade being a major supporter of Tennis Canada, it made the alignment between both parties only more clear. However, Gatorade was not the only major brand that used Leylah in their campaign to market around the Canadian Open, Google did as well. Strolling the streets of Montreal or Toronto, you’d be able to see the light pink background for the Pixel 6 campaign featuring Leylah on double-decker buses and metro turnstiles across the cities.
It’s an exciting time to be an up-and-coming Canadian athlete in non-traditional sports. The opportunities for growth both on and off the field are tremendous as we’ve seen others, including Leylah cash in the deals in recent months. For reference, Leylay Fernandez is now partnered with Gatorade, Google, Lululemon, Morgan Stanley, Flair Airlines, and more, how’s that for a 19-year-old Canadian athlete?
Serena Williams Takes on her Newest Venture
Tennis G.O.A.T. Takes on a New Challenge – Venture Capital
By Hiral Patel
Goodbyes are never easy, and when it comes to sports – a goodbye can bring any fan or athlete to tears. On Tuesday, one of Tennis’ biggest superstars (and the GOAT if you ask me) said goodbye to the game she has dominated for decades. Serena Williams announced that she will be moving on from her WTA career after the US Open in September.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles winner, who has earned approximately $94.6m in prize money over her career (highest in WTA history) and over $340 million in endorsements announced her decision in an interview and article in Vogue Magazine on Tuesday. 27 years after her first professional match in Quebec City, she played her last match in Canada yesterday (August 10) in the National Bank Open – in front of a sold-out crowd of 9500 fans.
In the Vogue piece, Williams opened up about her love for the sport and her family – and how she found it difficult to have to choose one over the other (as she turns 41 this month, she hopes to have a second child with her husband). We learn about Serena the competitor, and about how much her daughter Olympia means to her and her decision. Beyond this, we also get to learn about her newest challenge – Serena Ventures.
Williams founded Serena Ventures in 2014 and has raised an initial fund of $111m focused on changing the venture capital ecosystem with a focus on inclusivity. Williams cites being inspired by a talk at a JP Morgan Chase-organized conference, where she learned that less than 2% of venture capital (VC) money went to women founders.
For Williams, Serena Ventures is out to do just that and disrupt the status quo, though their website does note that “[they] don’t require founders to come from historically underrepresented backgrounds, yet 76% of [their] portfolio founders do”. In fact, Serena Ventures was a full female team until, as Williams mentions, “we brought in our first guy – a diversity hire!”. Serena Ventures has already funded over 20 companies, in various industries in the tech space.
Serena Williams lives for competition (shocker). Her drive to win on the court is fueling her passion to help underrepresented founders win in the boardroom. She serves as a role model for athletes in all sports as a champion, and now, a brand - and something tells us that Serena does not plan on coming up short in the venture capital world.
