Playfully Wimbledon
- Brand
- Wimbledon
- Year
- 2019
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Lostmechanics
Objective
Ralph Lauren needed its 14-year Wimbledon sponsorship to land with a younger audience that wasn't watching the tournament on TV, and to turn that attention into sales for its Polo Ralph Lauren collection. Built with the All England Lawn Tennis Club and Facebook Creative Shop, the game had to work as one connected story across social feeds, UK stores, and outdoor advertising.
Solution
Players pick a ball boy or ball girl kitted out in Polo Ralph Lauren and take off on an endless run down the court, steering left and right, jumping and sliding to dodge umpire chairs and player benches while scooping up tennis balls along the way. The game opens straight from a Facebook or Instagram ad or post as a Facebook Instant Game — no app to download — and plays the same on a phone or in a desktop browser at wimbledon.ralphlauren.co.uk. Each run ends with a score that drops onto a leaderboard, where players can check the global high-score table and send friends a challenge link daring them to beat it.
Results
Over 130,000 unique players completed 210,000 game sessions. The campaign lifted purchase intent by 6.3 points and returned 4.2X on ad spend.
- 1
The game opens on a title screen reading "Playfully Wimbledon" with a single "Start" button, followed by a loading screen with a progress bar while assets load.
- 2
Players pick a character on a "Select your player" screen, choosing between a ball boy or ball girl dressed in official Polo Ralph Lauren kit, then confirm with "Let's go!".
- 3
A "How to play" screen explains the controls before the run starts: arrow keys or a joystick to move left and right, and separate inputs to jump over or slip under obstacles, with a matching swipe-based scheme on mobile; on phones held upright, the game also asks players to rotate the screen to landscape.
- 4
The core loop is an endless runner: the character sprints down a tennis court, weaving between lanes to collect tennis balls while dodging umpire chairs and player benches, which can be dodged, jumped, or slid under.
- 5
A persistent HUD tracks the player's current score, personal highscore, a running timer, and a combo multiplier that climbs with consecutive balls collected, while the distance covered is marked in tennis terms — game, set, match.
- 6
The run can be paused at any time through a menu offering "Resume" or "Close".
- 7
Hitting an obstacle ends the run with a "GAME OVER" screen and the message "Well done! Fantastic performance."
- 8
Players are then shown their result on a "Discover your score" screen and can save it to the leaderboard with a "Save my score" button, attaching their name to the entry.
- 9
A "Highscores" / "RANKING" table lists name, time, and score for saved runs, alongside a "World records" section showing the best results across all players.
- 10
A "Challenge a friend" section generates a personal link players can copy and share, inviting a friend to play the same run and try to beat the score.
