You may have noticed a little game being played on the TV at the moment, it’s called tennis. It’s a civilised game, lots of strawberries and Robinsons Fruit and Barley.
Now I’m not an avid tennis fan, but Wimbledon isn’t just tennis, it’s a British institution. And boy, do people get excited about it! The only real sports fan in our office has switched conversation from football to tennis (at least we now have a chance to join in), and its messed up the TV listings for a couple of weeks (thank goodness Neighbours has moved to Channel 5).
And then there are the fans (in the true sense of the word) that camp outside Wimbledon in their sleeping bags to get tickets, just so that they can be on centre court to support their favourite players. And support them they do, especially when it comes to our own home-grown talent. However, judging by the crowd’s reaction at the Murray/Gasquet match on Monday, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were listening to two different matches.
At first the crowd stayed pretty quiet, Gasquet was happy, and the mood was reflected in Murray’s performance. But as Murray began to improve, the mood of the crowd lifted, and as the excitement continued to build, so Murray’s tennis got better and better. The louder the crowd cheered for Murray, the more Gasquet felt the pressure, becoming visibly irritated at certain points and subsequently making mistakes.
Some might argue that the noise between serves amounted to heckling, (and we’re not condoning that) but the ability to draw on the positive energy and screen out the bad has got to be an advantage in pressure situations. Even the commentators noticed how Murray focused on particular individuals in the crowd to motivate himself. No wonder he paid tribute to their support in post-match interviews.
So what’s the point? We all feed off the positivity of those around us and are motivated by those that support us and the same is true of the brands we work with. When our audience responds positively to a piece of communication, our reputation is enhanced, and with it our revenue, as our product flies off the shelves. But make a mistake, behave irresponsibly for example, and those same fans become your enemies.
Crowd support alone can’t work miracles, the tennis has got to be good, but if the talent and the ability are there and the product and the brand are solid, the crowd will go with you.
Game, Set and Match.
