Brand values:

- Sustainability

- Circular

- Passion

Brief:

Create a concept that combines the three pillars:

- Tennis

- Limitless passion

- Sustainability

The concept should be visible before and during the World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

Objectives:

Showcase the circular mindset of the client before and during the World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam.

We discovered that 300 million tennis balls are produced every year, from which almost nothing gets recycled. And that’s not exactly very sustainable. We found out that it is nearly impossible to recycle tennis balls. So hard, in fact, that it hasn’t really been done that successfully so far.

The idea:

Recycle old tennis balls and transform them into brand new products, making the tennis balls circular. We’ve used a brand new recycling process that allowed us to repurpose old tennis balls and transform them into new products. A tennis vibration dampener, a sustainable roof tile and the Circular! A sneaker worn by the ball boys and girls as well as the line umpires during the tournament. But we didn’t stop there! We asked the visitors to bring their old tennis balls to the tournament so that we can repurpose them into a new kids playground!

Data gathering:

After we found out that 300 million tennis balls are produced every year, we started to research why these balls are not being recycled. We discovered that recycling these tennis balls is extremely difficult do to the way that the tennis balls are being produced. Separating the materials is an intensive process which requires a new type of machine to make this process sustainable and in the future, profitable.

Target audience:

The visitors of the World Tennis Tournament and anyone else that is interested in sustainable projects.

Approach:

1. We developed a campaign film to address the issue of the 300 million tennis balls and explain that we want to 'Change the Game' by finding new solutions.

2. Behind the scenes videos of the different products were made to showcase the recycling and design process.

3. An expo of the products was held during the World Tennis Tournament.

1. The campaign film and the behind the scenes videos were seeded on different social media platforms to inform our target audience about the issue as well as our solutions to the issue.

2. The expo was used to display the products and inform the visitors of the World Tennis Tournament about the development.

3. The Circular sneakers were also worn by the ball boys and girls as well as the line umpires during the tournament.

4. Visitors of the tournament as well as tennis players from across the country were asked to donate their old tennis balls to create a brand new playground. We need 50.000 tennis balls to make the playground a reality.

Key dates:

03.12.18: Concept approval by client

17.12.18: Start product development

27.12.18: First prototypes

18.01.19: Campaign film + Behind the scenes videos online

09.02.19: Launch of products at the World Tennis Tournament

Contribution:

So far we have produced 500 Circular sneakers, 30 tennis vibration dampeners and 1 sustainable roof tile.

Together with our partners we are looking to see if we can create mass-production for the products that we developed. A pre-order of 20.000 Circular sneakers has been made and we are currently collecting 50.000 tennis balls to build a playground made out of the devulcanized rubber. Furthermore we are striving to see if we can develop brand new tennis balls out of old tennis balls in the future, creating a full 360 recycling process for these balls.

Change in behaviour:

Allied tennis clubs are now driven to collect old tennis balls rather than throwing them away so that they can be re-purposed into a playground.

Consumer awareness:

With over 5 million video views we created a lot of awareness around the waste issue and the solutions to the issue.