Fans can use social media apps through mobile devices to talk directly to their favourite players
Tennis fans are being served up mobile interactivity at this year's Australian Open, including a new free iPad app which enables them to follow and tweet messages of support to their favourite players.
Fans can also track player popularity online, although after last night, they may be using the app to express their disappointment at Australian Bernard Tomic's withdrawal during his first round clash with Rafael Nadal.
Australian Open organiser, Tennis Australia, has also worked with IBM to introduce IBM ReturnServe, an app that lets fans experience what it is like to face a serve from the world's top tennis players.
IBM ReturnServe analyses real-time data from every point of games at the Rod Laver Arena. This "live serve" data is displayed in a graphically-animated environment so fans can attempt to return serve at home using their computer or at select onsite locations using a virtual reality headset.
Tennis Australia CIO, Samir Mahir, said the organisation is seeing increased demand from fans around the world for more access and real-time event content.
Related: Interview: Samir Mahir, CIO, Tennis Australia
"Over two weeks of the Australian Open last year, more than 15.5 million unique users connected with the tournament online, and almost half of the website views were from mobile devices," he said.
"Each year, we aim to enhance the event experience and this year we have worked with IBM to develop a new iPad app, improve the website and smartphone apps, as well as advance the technology infrastructure behind the scenes."
Tennis Australia has been working with IBM for a few years to deliver innovative technology to players, fans, and the media at the world-renowned tournament tennis tournament.
Other technology being offered are IBM SlamTracker, a statistics and visualisation platform that uses predictive analytics and historical data to identify and broadcast key performance indicators (KPIs), providing comparisons of players' careers and live performances.
Infographic: IBM's activities at the tennis tournament
During a match, each player's performance is measured against their KPIs and updated in real time on the Australian Open website.
New features in SlamTracker this year include streamlined analysis of key turning points in a match, such as aces and winning shots, and a social media sentiment feed that measures the percentage of positive tweets.
The Australian Open Social Leaderboard - which is updated every few minutes - tracks the positive and negative sentiment for players on social media. Fans help their favourite players move up the ranks by 'liking' or tweeting favourably about a player.
Pictured at top: IBM's server room at the Australian Open.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
Big brands were once protected from small brands by high barriers to entry. Big brands had the resources to employ big agencies, to crack big ideas and to invest in big campaigns. They had the luxury of time to debate strategies and work on long-term innovation pipelines. Retailers used to partner with big brands.
According to the World Economic Forum in its most recent The Future of Jobs report, the most important skills for the future are not technical, task-oriented skills, but higher-order skills such as creativity, social influence, active learning, and analytical thinking.
Businesses continue to highly value the attention they buy through paid media, yet at the same time, many continue to disregard and under-value opportunities to connect with customers using their owned media.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
Well written Vanessa!! Agreed with your view that human experience is marketing's next frontier. Those businesses who are focused on the ...
Clyde Griffith
Forget customer experience, human experience is marketing's next frontier
Great tips for tops skills need to develop and stay competitive
Nick
The top skills needed to stay competitive in a rapidly changing workforce
The popularity of loyalty programs is diminishing, though I'd say it is because customers are savvy enough to recognise when a loyalty pr...
Heather
It’s time for marketers to rethink their approach to ‘loyalty’
Thanks Nadia for sharing this blog. It has really useful and amazing information about Salesforce Commerce Cloud and digital engagement w...
Holly Smith
Adidas taps data and technology smarts to build personalised digital engagement with consumers
clearly someone who's jealous and only comments from the safety of being behind their keyboard
Peter Sibson
The purpose of purpose - Brand science - CMO Australia