Ahead of the start of the grass-court season and the three-week countdown to Wimbledon 2019, The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) joined forces with McCann London to ask fans to #JoinTheStory in a brand-new campaign for The Championships 2019. It opens with a trailer titled “The Story Continues,” which runs across broadcast, out-of-home, and online, and showcases the extraordinary Wimbledon moments that made the front page of the ‘news’. The campaign also commemorates the greatest stories in tennis, while demonstrating how sports and society have influenced each other over time and will continue to do so long into the future.

Created on behalf of director Elliot Dear and animation studio Blinkink, the 60-second video displays a series of key moments in tennis, all layered against global news, therefore creating a visual ensemble that’s worthy of all admiration.

For example, when Amelia Earhart became the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, Althea Gibson gained the title of the first African American player to win a singles title at Wimbledon. As man landed on the moon, Billie Jean King led the fight for equality in tennis. The Human Genome was documented at the exact time when Roger Federer redefined the way the popular sport is played.

Photography, live action, typography, state-of-the-art VFX, and post-production techniques were used to create static imagery, bringing to life historical moments that were never available to the public. An orchestral re-record of Oasis’s Live Forever nicely completes the video’s soundtrack. The short cinematic experience will run across TV, online and digital for three weeks in the build-up to The Championships.

James Ralley, Head of Commercial and Brand, the AELTC, shares the background for the initiative: “The story of Wimbledon began in 1877 and we’ve been making headlines ever since. Each tournament creates new heroes and new stories; while our greatest moments have shared the front page with two world wars, the moon landings and the invention of the Internet.”

Rob Webster and Alexei Berwitz, Creative Directors, McCann London, further discussed the prominent position of the English tournament: “Wimbledon is the most prestigious tennis event on earth. A championship that is truly unique: in its traditions, rituals and its place in the pantheon of sporting history. Working alongside Blinkink and visionary Elliot Dear, we have aspired to create a campaign with a story for all the ages. An obsessively craft-driven piece that represents Wimbledon’s ongoing pursuit of greatness.”

The AELTC will be running a social content series that shows the evolution of Wimbledon’s headlines from telegraph, to paper, to mobile phone, to tweet. Ahead of the qualifying rounds, an innovative mini-documentary series will be released, all under the #JointheStory banner.

Credits:

Client: Wimbledon

Brand & Manager: Harry Kerr

Head of Marketing and Commercial: James Ralley

Commercial & Media Director: Mick Desmond

Head of Communications, Content & Digital: Alexandra Willis

Creative Agency: McCann

Chief Creative Officers: Rob Doubal and Laurence Thomson

Creative Directors: Rob Webster and Alexei Berwitz

Senior Creatives: Matt Searle and Olly Wood

Business Director: Tommy Smith

Account Manager: Alice Lindsay

Project Director: Daniela Loccisano

Chief Strategy Officer: Theo Izzard-Brown

Planner: Emily Ellis

Executive Producer: Jonathan Davis

Agency Producer: Anna Cartwright

Head of Art: Dan Howarth

Designer: Matthew Thomas

Head of Business Affairs: Molly Strasser

Animation Studio: Blinkink

Director: Elliot Dear

Executive Producer: Bart Yates

Producer: Georgina Fillmore

Production Coordinator: Maryam Anibaba

Directory of Photography: Max Halstead

Art Director: Sean Hogan

Wardrobe: Zelda Sellars

Post-Production Comp Lead: Sean Martin

Compositor: Emre Samioğlu

Compositor: John Wilkinson

Compositor: Dan Ruiz

3D Lead: Quentin Vien

3D Team Member: Sandrine Gimenez

3D Team Member: Lisa George-Gilroy

3D Team Member: Sophie Blayrat

3D Team Member: Klaas-Harm de Boer

3D Team Member: Florent Rousseau

3D Team Member: Mark Ardisson

Matte Painter: Metin Gungor

Editor: Christina Conradi

Titles and Motion Graphics: Roland Lukacsi

Stock Source and Image Rights: Jody Winterbottom @ The Directors Studio

News Researcher and Writer: Rebekah Lucking

Audio

Sound Engineer: Jack Sedgwick @ Wave

Sound Producer: Beth Tomlin and Matt Wyatt

Music

Title: Live Forever

Composer: Noel Gallagher

Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing Ltd

Artist/Arranger: Fred Ashworth

Master Recording Owner: Native Music Supervision Ltd