In 2023, the Western & Southern Open, an annual professional tennis tournament held in Cincinnati, came under new ownership. This sparked a conversation about the location and leadership considered moving the tournament to Charlotte, North Carolina.The tournament, which had been hosted in Cincinnati since its inception in 1899, was a cherished event for tennis fans across the Midwest, and generated an economic impact of over $80 million each year, so Cincinnati leaders had a vested interest in keeping the tournament local. To assist with this effort, economic development agency Cincinnati Experience engaged USDP to help rally community support for the tournament and demonstrate to the new ownership the benefits of keeping the tournament in Cincinnati.
The Challenge: Rally a city
Cincinnati Experience faced 3 major obstacles while fighting to keep The Open:
- Lack of awareness - Many were unaware that the tournament was possibly moving.
- Small time frame - The tournament lasts for one week, and by the time Cincinnati Experience's campaign was set to start, it was rapidly approaching.
- Multiple stakeholders - Besides Cincinnati Experience and USDP, there were many other collaborating partners with a vested interest which that made coordination very difficult.
The Strategy: Prudent planning. Rapid execution.
We collaborated with Cincinnati Experience to develop a three-phase strategy:
- Assessment - Cincinnati Experience needed an advertising plan to drive traffic to a landing page where users would pledge their support.
- Assembly - We knew that we would need to create a multi-channel approach to raise awareness about the tournament’s potential move and rally support.
- Action - This plan would require constant monitoring and daily adjustments to make sure we were targeting the most interested users and hitting daily spend goals.
The Tactics: Advertising best practices
To accomplish our strategy, we followed the same best practices that would apply to a more conventional advertising campaign:
- Create a dynamic landing page - The ads needed to lead somewhere, so we built a page asking visitors to share their thoughts on why the tournament should stay in Cincinnati.
- Follow intent - We ran paid search ad campaigns to users searching for tournament information like tickets or parking.
- Reach the entire funnel - We also ran programmatic display ads targeting sports fans (prospecting), those at the tournament venue (geofencing), and those who visited the ad landing page (remarketing).
The Results: The tournament stayed!
The short campaign generated impressive results:
- 531,276 total impressions
- 26% of all form submissions were driven directly by ads
- 84% of respondents said would they purchase tickets in the future
If you follow the Cincinnati news, then you probably remember the results.
The tournament owners decided to keep the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, citing community support for the tournament as a major factor in their decision.
The tournament is now called the Cincinnati Open.
Cheers to one of Cincinnati's greatest sporting events, and if you have never been, consider this your invitation!
