Game, Set and Match for the 2011 Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots
– Sony Ericsson’s tennis activation campaign for 2011 comes to a close with a glittering finale in New York –
London, Saturday 27th August 2011: The inaugural Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots came to a thrilling end in New York today where the winning Xperia(TM) Hot Shot was revealed at a Finale party at the Red Bull Studios in SoHo. The reveal took place days before the final Grand Slam of the season, the US Open in Flushing Meadow.
Sabine Lisicki took the coveted prize and in doing so won a €100,000 support prize from Sony Ericsson. Tennis fans had voted for their favourite and most entertaining Xperia(TM) Hot Shot on the official Sony Ericsson Facebook page (www.facebook.com/xperiahotshots) with Sabine Lisicki claiming the most votes to win.
The competition was launched in March in Miami with Maria Sharapova, where the six rising stars of the WTA were unveiled as the Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots. The players selected from across the globe to form the Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots were Bethanie Mattek-Sands (US), Sorana Cirstea (Romania), Heather Watson (UK), Alize Cornet (France), Domikina Cibulkova (Slovakia) and Sabine Lisicki (Germany).
The competition followed the six players as they realized their dreams on and off the court, through exclusive access to the worlds of music, film, gaming and fashion. Fans could follow their lives through the Sony Ericsson Facebook page and YouTube channel. Over the course of the campaign the Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots competition has generated huge awareness including:
- 820,000 friends on Facebook
- 3 Million video views on You Tube
- 100,000 downloads of mobile app
- 1200 pieces of media coverage
- Over 70 videos produced
- 530 hours of footage shot
The campaign was created by Sony Ericsson to raise awareness of its state-of-the-art Xperia(TM) smartphones and to amplify their sponsorship of the WTA. The tennis players communicated with their fans through social media platforms using their Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) android touch smartphones and the campaign helped strengthen Sony Ericsson’s position as the communication entertainment brand. Secondly the campaign aimed to raise the profile of all the Xperia(TM) Hot Shots and lastly it was produced to give fans unique and exclusive access to their heroes.
Not only was the campaign a success off the court, the Xperia(TM) Hot Shots saw their rankings soar as well as their profiles this year. Germany’s Sabine Lisicki saw her ranking go from 220 when she was chosen as an Xperia(TM)Hot Shot to her current position of number 22 in the world, reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon along the way. Heather Watson moved in to the top 100 for the first time in her career and Bethanie, Sorana and Dominika also saw a rise up the rankings while being an Xperia(TM) Hot Shot.
Sony Ericsson ambassador Maria Sharapova commented on the success of the campaign:
“I’ve worked with Sony Ericsson since 2007 and they have always done really interesting things with their sponsorship of women’s tennis. This campaign has been fantastic in bringing to the fore some of the less well-known players on the Tour. The support that I’ve received from Sony Ericsson for nearly 4 years has helped me enormously in my career and it’s been great to see how the six Xperia(TM) Hot Shot girls have really benefitted from the increased exposure and amazing opportunities that this campaign has given them.”
Stephan Croix, VP,Head of Global Marketing Partnerships, Sony Ericsson added:
“As Xperia(TM)Hot Shots wraps up here tonight in New York, it’s great to look back at a very successful campaign for Sony Ericsson. Being known for our innovation in Smartphones, we have always been keen in driving innovation with our tennis sponsorship and we believe we have done that with the Sony Ericsson Xperia(TM) Hot Shots campaign. The insight we started with – that people have a desire to get closer to the real personalities behind the sport – has proved true and so the behind the scenes format of the web-based TV show has proved very popular. After such tremendous feedback from fans, players and everyone else involved we will definitely be taking the campaign in to a second season”.
For more information on the competition go to www.facebook.com/xperiahotshots
About Sony Ericsson:
Sony Ericsson celebrates its 10th year as a joint venture between Sony Corporation and Ericsson in October, 2011. Over the years the company has brought together the best communication technologies with superior entertainment user experiences to create its Xperia(TM) line of the ‘most entertaining smartphones’ in the mobile handset industry. With its global corporate functions in London, Sony Ericsson has sales and marketing operations in all major regions of the world, as well as manufacturing in China, and product development sites in China, Japan, Sweden and Silicon Valley, California. For more information, please visit: www.sonyericsson.com/press.
