By Sean Bradley
Photo: Head Tennis
(March 21, 2011) By now you may or may not have seen the Head tennis commercial for Novak Djokovic’s stunt in which he rides the wings of a early Russian prop plane, emulating the famous photograph of yesteryear’s daredevils.
With literally weeks of marketing under their belts for this campaign, Head has invested not only a lot of money, but some serious marketing energy. If you don’t care to watch the group of videos, let me sum it up for you: Novak Djokovic introduces the stunt and takes us through the cockpit of the plane, discusses his fears of the flight, gives us a mock show involving a model airplane and couple of miniature tennis player toys, and finally takes flight in a extremely well-polished, sepia-toned 3.5 minute video. In the final product, Djokovic and a partner await a mysterious character (a pretty lady, of course) who brings Samsonite-packed, foam-incased rackets to play with. Strapped in Head snowboarding boots, they climb atop the wings of the plane and immediately take off. And then, in a fierce disagreement with the physics of aerodynamics and the laws of mass, they play tennis. The End.
The question is not whether or not it’s legitimate (c’mon, really?), but whether or not it will be a successful marketing campaign. We’ve seen a slew of Head trick-shot videos where players attempt to make paintings with colored tennis balls, do some simple skeet shooting (both ala Andy Murray’s prior Head videos) or create a perpetual tennis machine (Djokovic’s prior viral video), but will they continue to work? Is the shtick played out?
The premise for the videos is quite simple – with a famous player in tow and a little video-editing know-how, producers are able to create content that leaves viewers asking, “How in the world…?” People are certainly interested by the trickery and the simple question of legitimacy is enough to fan the fires of hundreds of thousands of views and debate.
The question is – does it work on you? And do you want a Head racket? See it here: