NEW YORK, NY, USA - The inaugural Sony Ericsson Xperia Hot Shots came to a thrilling end in New York on Saturday, where the winning Xperia 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 tournament of the season, the US Open.
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 favorite Xperia Hot Shot on the official Sony Ericsson Facebook page. Lisicki got the most votes.
The competition was launched in March in Miami with Maria Sharapova, where six of the rising stars of the WTA were unveiled as the Sony Ericsson Xperia Hot Shots:Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Sorana Cirstea, Heather Watson, Alizé Cornet, Dominika Cibulkova and eventual winner Lisicki.
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 competition has generated huge awareness including 820,000 friends on Facebook; 3 Million video views on YouTube; 100,000 downloads of mobile app; 1,200 pieces of media coverage; over 70 videos produced; and 530 hours of footage shot.
The campaign was created by Sony Ericsson to raise awareness of its Xperia 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 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 Hot Shots and lastly it was produced to give fans unique and exclusive access to their heroes.
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 I’ve received from Sony Ericsson for nearly four years has helped me enormously in my career and it’s been great to see how the six Xperia Hot Shot girls have really benefited from the increased exposure and amazing opportunities this campaign has given them.”
Stephan Croix, VP, Head of Global Marketing Partnerships, Sony Ericsson added: “As Xperia Hot Shots wraps up 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 Hot Shots campaign. The insight we started with – that people have a desire to get closer to the real personalities behind the sport – has proven true and so the behind the scenes format of the web-based TV show has proven 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.”
