Rogers Cup Marketing Mistake...
Wimbledon may have Ladies Singles, but Tennis Canada made a major "faux pas" by using the word "Ladies" in a completely differently and totally inappropriate manner. "Ladies" was used as part of a marketing slogan on the poster promoting the upcoming women's pro
tennis tournament, the Rogers Cup. The originally tag line read, “Come for the ladies and stay for the legends” referring to an exhibition during the latter stages of the women’s tournament featuring ex-pros, John McEnroe and Andre Agassi among others.
The slogan had so many negative connotations associated with it that I won’t even go into, but the fact that the two most marketable female tennis players, let alone, female athletes on the planet, i.e. Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, were in a poster with that tag line is inexcusable and terribly embarrassing for a national tennis body such as Tennis Canada, which promotes the Rogers Cup. In addition, it’s quite distressing that a top tier women’s pro tennis tournament featuring all the biggest names in women’s professional tennis feels it needs to not only co-promote, but actually emphasize a concurrent exhibition featuring retired male tennis stars as potentially an even bigger draw for fans. The subtle reference that ladies are/can’t be legends was also terribly disappointing. Fortunately, as a result of the uproar last week, the slogan for the Rogers Cup’s marketing campaign was changed to “making history, re-living history”. Let’s move forward and not re-live “this history”…
The slogan had so many negative connotations associated with it that I won’t even go into, but the fact that the two most marketable female tennis players, let alone, female athletes on the planet, i.e. Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, were in a poster with that tag line is inexcusable and terribly embarrassing for a national tennis body such as Tennis Canada, which promotes the Rogers Cup. In addition, it’s quite distressing that a top tier women’s pro tennis tournament featuring all the biggest names in women’s professional tennis feels it needs to not only co-promote, but actually emphasize a concurrent exhibition featuring retired male tennis stars as potentially an even bigger draw for fans. The subtle reference that ladies are/can’t be legends was also terribly disappointing. Fortunately, as a result of the uproar last week, the slogan for the Rogers Cup’s marketing campaign was changed to “making history, re-living history”. Let’s move forward and not re-live “this history”…
|
