Your biggest audience opportunity hasn't found you yet.
The people most likely to drive your next decade of growth probably aren't following you right now. The AO stopped trying to convert non-tennis fans into tennis fans and started asking different questions: what else do they love? Where are they already showing up? How can we credibly meet them there? The areas where we were underperforming were blank spaces to play.
Don't chase sponsors, look for co-authors.
When it comes to partnerships, find the overlap between what's good for your brand, what's good for your fans, and what's alive in culture. Bring together your audience, your brand — and your partners' — culture, and your joint creative capability. Then create what neither of you could make alone.
Take control of how your story is told.
How much did your brand spend last year on media, creators, broadcasters, partners and platforms? And how much of that was spent letting other people tell your story in your name? After the AO had become a world-class content engine, we found that the brand felt slightly different depending on where you encountered it. So we made three moves:
Build an enduring platform that doesn't change every year. Translate it into an identity people want to carry. Make it effortless for every partner, broadcaster, and creator to tell the story too.
Global scale starts with local truths.
The AO is watched by 2 billion people across 225 markets. But most global fans never set foot in Melbourne Park. We needed to build one globally recognisable brand while showing up in ways that resonate locally. Our strategy: If you can't get to the AO, we'll bring the AO to you. Through live sites, localised content, influencer programmes and grassroots investment in the next generation of the sport, we told one brand story in hundreds of markets across the globe.
Live your values and they will come.
Most marketers can recite their brand values from memory. The harder question is how to truly live them. At the AO, the value we live most loudly is right there in the name: Open. Open to everyone, from All Abilities programming to First Nations recognition to LGBTQIA+ initiatives that are part of the fabric of the tournament. Because somewhere in your category, there is an audience that would choose you if they felt genuinely seen by you. The brands that win the next generation will be the ones those audiences look at and think: they're for people like me.
Don't wait for disruption, drive it.
Ambition is great in theory. The hard part is when the budget is tight and the timelines are impossible, and the easy option seems, well, easier. When something is working, the temptation is to repeat it, improve it, and call it innovation. Our outgoing CEO Craig Tiley had a standing challenge: every AO should feel at least 50% different from the year before. That challenge forces ambition – giving us the 1 Point Slam, TOPCOURT, the Animated Feed, Grand Slam Oval and more.
The next generation of sport, brand, and culture
Who is the next Federer or Serena of your business?
Future Champions is the AO's annual programme to find and platform emerging talent shaping the future of marketing.
Six winners from around the world will come to Melbourne for a once-in-a-career Australian Open experience – featuring Grand Slam tennis, premium hospitality, music, entertainment, cultural programming, behind-the-scenes access, and mentorship from Asia-Pacific's leading marketers and commercial leaders.
The future of our industry will be built by people who know how to earn attention. Nominate one of them.