London, UK: The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) has announced the appointment of an integrated team of Interpublic (NYSE: IPG) agencies, led by McCann London, to help build and grow the brand of The Championships, Wimbledon, in key markets.

The IPG team consists of McCann London, Octagon and UM, drawing on all marketing disciplines. WME/IMG will continue to act as the AELTC’s exclusive commercial agent.

The Championships are thriving with a global audience reach of over 1 billion people and the AELTC recognises that audiences are becoming more sophisticated in sports viewing and entertainment choices.

As part of a long-term approach to future-proof and grow the Wimbledon brand, the AELTC began the search for an agency partner in May 2015, issuing a brief to amplify the presence and understanding of The Championships to audiences worldwide.

Mick Desmond, Commercial and Media Director at the AELTC said: “After a thorough process we’ve appointed IPG, led by McCann London, as our agency partner. Throughout the process, the IPG team worked with us as partners, demonstrating skill, commitment and insight in solving our challenges. Our objective is to enhance the strength of the Wimbledon brand worldwide, and we are confident that IPG are the right partner for that task.”

Mark Lund, CEO at McCann Worldgroup UK said: “We recognised early that marketing opportunities of this nature don’t come along too often – it’s easy to apply superlatives with a organisation as iconic as Wimbledon. Our work now is to help build the future and protect the legacy while helping to develop a globally significant superbrand in a sympathetic and commercially astute way.”