Tennis Sponsors Missing Out

If professional tennis is on television, you can bet I’m watching it. Men’s tennis, ladies’ tennis, I’m there.

Right now 256 of the best tennis players in the world are taking on the Melbourne heat, playing for the Australian Open title. I’m still pulling for the American men (Come on, Andy!), but with Venus out of the draw I’m focusing my cheering energies on Dinara Safina for the women’s title.

The Opportunity

Venus wore a fabulous yellow tennis dress during her second-round loss to Carla Suarez Navarro today. If I were still captain of a high school tennis team or still played recreationally often enough to justify cute tennis outfits, I would want that dress!

The problem is that I couldn’t find out who made the dress or where to get it until hours after the match. My first instinct was to check the Australian Open Web site for pictures and look for a logo. It turns out that the dress is from Venus’s own line, but I couldn’t tell from the pictures on the Web site or the ones found through a Google search.

According to a study by the USTA and the Tennis Industry Association in 2005, over 25 million Americans play tennis. Assume with me that roughly half of those are women and half of those will flip through channels and land on a female tennis player wearing a phenomenal outfit. What then?

Time for Media Convergence

Our tennis playing American woman then visits the tournament Web site for pictures. She clicks on a picture of her well-dressed player, and sees a clickable ad for the very outfit on the page with the picture. Getting the idea?

This concept has a number of positives:

1. Narrowly targeted audience. Only the tennis fans who play and pay visit these Web sites. If a woman is looking for an outfit, make it easy to find!
2. Convenience. Even if she isn’t trying to find out where to buy that outfit, the opportunity to check it out now falls right in her lap. If it’s cute and buying is easy, why not?
3. Strengthening the association between product/brand and athlete spokeswoman. Athletes are paid a boatload to wear these clothes and represent the brand, why not get as much bang for your buck as possible?
4. Women are turning to the internet. According to a recent study by Integrated Media Measurement, Inc., highest simultaneous television/Internet usage is among females 30-39. In other words, she watches just closely enough to think that the yellow would look really great on her, and she’s paying just enough attention to the laptop in her hands to find out more.

What do you think? Ever seen a great pair of shoes or bag on TV and searched with no results online to find it?

What if this idea was taken and used with gowns at awards shows or clothing on reality TV? I think it would work without making me watch advertisements within my show (see: Real Housewives of Orange County – I can’t believe I just admitted to watching that ever)!