Swiss Federation Promotes Tennis at Home

Written by: Staff on 24th November 2011

Swiss Federation Promotes Tennis at Home

Roger Federer of Switzerland is seen during a break of his group B match against Mardy Fish of the USA at the ATP World Tour tennis finals at O2 Arena in London, Britain, 24 November 2011. Federer won 6-1, 3-6 and 6-3. EPA/KERIM OKTEN |

At the recent Top Executives’ Meeting, Swiss Tennis’ Head of Development/Promotion Marcel Weidmann showcased some of the projects implemented by the organization during the course of this year in an attempt to further boost the popularity of the sport.

The first of these was a major nationwide publicity campaign called ‘Time to Play’. The aim of the project was to generate an open-house style National Tennis Day throughout the 400 participating tennis clubs and centers in Switzerland. The National Tennis Day saw 4,500 visitors in attendance, approximately 1,900 of whom were new players, with an estimated 390 people becoming club members for the first time, despite unfortunate rainy weather throughout Switzerland on the day.

Prior to the event, Swiss Tennis provided a number of tools to participating clubs by creating a website with a variety of pictures and printed materials and thorough checklists designed to achieve the highest participation numbers. More than 160,000 flyers and 5,200 posters were created. With a total budget of 120,000 Swiss Francs for the entire campaign, additional items such as fleece bands, magazine placements, raffles and give-aways were also generated to promote the event.

Follow-up investigations after the campaign showed a high level of satisfaction with the results of the pioneering event. 80% of the clubs agreed that the idea of the campaign was either quite good (20%), great (38%) or excellent (22%). 40% of the clubs responded that they would definitely participate in the program next year and another 52% would consider doing so.

Swiss Tennis concluded that there will be no National Tennis Day in 2012 but that each club/tennis center or regional association should have individual tennis open days with the motto ‘go4fun – go4tennis’, which is also the name of another new promotion tool

“DAILY TENNIS NEWS WIRE”