NTT turns Tour de France digital

Challenge

Since 2015, NTT Ltd. and A.S.O. have co-innovated a data-driven solution to provide insights into the Tour de France race for broadcasters and fans alike. They have created a data-driven platform that allows them to provide insight into the race across all platforms.

Now into the fifth year of partnership, NTT wanted to garner media attention with a fresh storytelling angle, while highlighting the continued digital transformation journey NTT and A.S.O. has accelerated for the sport.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 created new challenges for NTT. The health crisis not only forced a delay to the start of the Tour, but it also limited the number of people who could be supporting the race in person. As a result, for the first time, NTT had to support the entire Tour remotely, with its team spanning across five continents, working to ensure that fans continue to have the best experience possible.

Approach

Rather than focusing on the challenges faced by NTT, LEWIS saw this as an opportunity to refresh the storytelling approach on this partnership story, to emphasize NTT’s capabilities in leveraging technology for good – a value and purpose NTT holds close to heart.

When the Tour kicked off in August 2020, LEWIS embarked on a two-phase media approach. We reached out to selected tier-one media to secure a series of embargo interviews, followed by disseminating the main press release about how NTT is transforming Tour de France this year.

Our efforts did not stop there. When the Tour ended in September 2020, we followed up with journalists via a media alert on the lessons learned by NTT. This further brought about additional coverage, as well as media interest in interviewing NTT.