Edinburgh PR Agency Examines The Ace of Extra Stories That Emerged From SW19

As world number one Djokovic served the ball hard across the net, thwarting Federer’s bid to win a record-breaking eighth title and as the crowd leapt up from their seats in mad applause, nonchalantly knocking strawberries and cream all over their summer bests, sports journalists and the global media were desperately scrambling to get the champion’s story up online first.

Wimbledon 2015, predictably, had the eyes of world’s media glued to every serve, hungrily following the ball back and forth like a mesmeric metronome, eagerly awaiting that ultimate match point.

However, summer upon summer, it is not solely stories about the sport that come out of the prestigious event and this year was no different.  And no, we aren’t referring to that lame article about female tennis players’ on-the-court fashion faux pas.

Indeed, whether securing coverage for all the right or wrong reasons, the Wimbledon spectators found the PR ball in their court almost as frequently as the players. Here, we analyse the cream of the crop that the championship served up this year.

David Beckham

One swift swipe of the hand and the crowd went wild – but it wasn’t Serena Williams’ rapid reflexes that wowed the audience and rather David Beckham’s. The former England captain single-handedly caught an awry tennis ball as it flew into the royal box during Thursday’s match, drawing unexpected attention to himself as the video of his effortless response went instantly viral.

Such was the delight of the crowd at the deflection that even Jamie Murray and John Peers, who were in the middle of a nail-biting doubles semi-final, stopped to applaud a rather bashful-looking Beckham. The Twitter world cheered its approval and his rapid reaction gained him some easy, positive coverage – not that it was a particular necessity for the newspaper’s favourite doting celebrity Dad.

Lewis Hamilton

When British Formula One racing driver, Lewis Hamilton, was haughtily snubbed from the exclusive Royal Box for daring to turn up in something other than the scrupulous Black Tie dress code, he and his incriminated flowery silk shirt gained a mixed bag of media attention.

While Gary Lineker condemned the SW19 scandal as ‘England at its pompous worst’ and the terms ‘draconian’, ‘exclusionary’ and ‘middle class privilege’ reverberated throughout the noisy media backlash, others chose to defend Wimbledon’s aristocracy in its hour of need.

Whether you agree or disagree with the response, the one notion to emerge from this year’s championship is that Wimbledon is an institution that refuses to cave under pressure and will defend its arguably harsh rules and regulations until the end. So don’t even think about trying to sneak your suede shoes and fedora in next summer.

JK Rowling

She has been slowly but surely morphing into a Twitter goddess for quite some time, crouching in the social media shadows only to strike at the perfect moment with her best literary backlash. It was therefore no surprise when J.K. Rowling jumped to Serena Williams’ defence, blasting opponents aside like Molly Weasley shielding her daughter from the wrath of Bellatrix. (Come on, I had to.)

J.K. stood up for Serena against a gang of Internet trolls who suggested the Wimbledon champ was ‘built like a man’ with a glorious putdown, sarcastically stating that her husband looked exactly the same in a dress and concluding with a simple yet sensational ‘You’re an idiot.’

Thus far, Rowling’s sleek tweet has been favorited more than 100,000 times and has enjoyed almost 80,000 retweets, crowning the international best-selling author the clear winner of that match.

Globally-renowned occasions like Wimbledon are the perfect example of how more than just one story can be easily extracted from a main event. At Holyrood PR, we are experts at digging for stories within stories and know just how to drum up a multitude of coverage from a single activity.

Want to discover what stories our PR experts can create for your business?

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