Wimbledon and McCann London launched 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' in June 2018, a 60-second animated film tracing The Championships from 1877 to
Wimbledon's Animated History Lesson That Redefined Championship Marketing
Wimbledon's 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' is a 60-second animated film created by McCann London and produced by Nexus Studios, launched in June 2018 in the United Kingdom to promote The Championships 2018 while marking the All England Club's 150th anniversary and 50 years of Open tennis.
The campaign launched on 10 June 2018, premiering during the 2018 French Open final — a deliberate broadcast placement designed to reach tennis audiences at peak competitive attention. The film uses a single, continuous tennis rally as its structural device, moving chronologically from Wimbledon's origins in 1877 through to the modern era, concluding with Roger Federer and Serena Williams. The narrative thread connecting Victorian-era player Spencer Gore to two of the sport's contemporary icons gives the film an unusual emotional architecture: history not as retrospective but as living momentum.
In the United Kingdom, the campaign ran for approximately five weeks, concluding on 15 July 2018 at the close of The Championships. McCann London produced three trailer versions featuring different player combinations, each targeted at distinct broadcast and fan markets, extending the campaign's reach without diluting its central creative concept. Additional social media films were planned around Wimbledon's gardens and its Ticket Resale programme, forming a broader content ecosystem around the hero film. The campaign sits within the 'In Pursuit of Greatness' platform, which McCann established for the All England Club in 2015 following a competitive agency appointment, making 'Take On History' the third annual iteration of that strategic platform rather than a standalone creative idea.
McCann London was appointed by the All England Lawn Tennis Club in 2015, according to Marketing Week, following a competitive process aimed at developing a more rounded and versatile communications concept for the Wimbledon brand. That appointment produced the 'In Pursuit of Greatness' platform, which gave each subsequent year's campaign a connective strategic spine. By 2018, the platform had three years of accumulated brand equity to draw on, and the anniversary context — 150 years of the All England Club, 50 years of Open tennis — provided an unusually rich brief for a heritage narrative.
The strategic insight animating 'Take On History' is that Wimbledon's longevity is itself a competitive asset. In the United Kingdom, where sports marketing is increasingly fragmented across streaming platforms and social channels, a campaign anchored in a continuous 141-year narrative offered audiences something neither rival Grand Slam events nor domestic sports properties could replicate. The US Open, operated by the United States Tennis Association, and the French Open, run by the French Tennis Federation, have their own heritage narratives, but neither carries the specific cultural weight of Wimbledon within a British context. The All England Club's positioning as the sport's spiritual home gives McCann London a strategic platform that is structurally difficult for competitors to contest.
The decision to premiere the film during the 2018 French Open final reflects a media strategy attuned to audience state of mind: tennis viewers watching the Roland Garros final are already emotionally primed for competitive drama, making them a receptive audience for a campaign that opens with the sport's earliest competitive history and builds to its present-day giants.
Nexus Studios directed 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' through the directing duo Smith and Foulkes, whose work on the film drew specific editorial attention for its precision across animation styles, fashion, player technique, and atmospheric detail spanning more than a century of visual history.
The central creative device — a single unbroken tennis rally that carries the viewer from 1877 to the present — demanded a level of craft discipline that goes beyond conventional sports advertising. Each era required its own visual language: the illustration style, the court surface treatment, the clothing silhouettes, the racket shapes, and even the physical posture of players had to shift convincingly as the rally moved through time. As Rob Doubal, Co-president and Chief Creative Officer at McCann London, told The Drum on 12 June 2018: 'The guys at Nexus were incredible at capturing the changing styles, not just of design and fashion, but of the Club, the players' techniques and the atmosphere.' The film's animation is not decorative but structural — every visual shift in style is also a narrative beat marking the passage of time.
Laurence Thomson, Co-Chief Creative Officer at McCann London alongside Rob Doubal, was part of the creative leadership that shaped the campaign's direction. The Drum named the film its Ad of the Day on 12 June 2018, with the publication specifically praising the 'stunning animation' and noting how animation styles and visual details evolved across the film's duration. It's Nice That also covered the production, recognising the technical and artistic ambition involved in sustaining a single continuous visual sequence across radically different historical periods. In the United Kingdom, the film represented one of the more technically demanding pieces of animated advertising produced for a sports client in 2018.
No verified performance data for 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' is publicly available in terms of viewership figures, engagement rates, or commercial return metrics attributable to the campaign.
Structural analysis, however, points to several markers of effectiveness. The Drum's Ad of the Day recognition on 12 June 2018 — the same day the campaign launched in the United Kingdom — indicates immediate industry traction. Coverage across The Drum, It's Nice That, Marketing Week, and Campaign Live suggests the film achieved meaningful earned media reach within the advertising and creative industries, a reliable secondary indicator of cultural resonance for brand campaigns of this type.
The campaign's placement during the 2018 French Open final demonstrates confident media buying: it is a high-cost, high-visibility slot that the All England Club chose to activate a brand narrative campaign rather than a promotional one, signalling institutional confidence in the 'In Pursuit of Greatness' platform's ability to drive Championship interest without relying on ticket sales messaging alone.
The production of three distinct trailer versions for different broadcast and fan markets further suggests a campaign designed for measurable audience segmentation, even if the results of that segmentation have not entered the public record. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 70 out of 100, reflecting strong creative and strategic craft offset by the absence of publicly documented performance outcomes.
'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' is a 60-second animated film created by McCann London for Wimbledon's 2018 Championships. Produced by Nexus Studios and directed by Smith and Foulkes, it uses a continuous tennis rally to trace the All England Club's history from 1877 to the modern era, marking the club's 150th anniversary.
Nexus Studios produced the film, with the directing duo Smith and Foulkes at the helm. McCann London led the campaign creative, with Rob Doubal and Laurence Thomson serving as Co-Chief Creative Officers. The film launched on 10 June 2018, premiering during the 2018 French Open final, according to reporting by The Drum and Marketing Week.
The 2018 campaign marked two milestones simultaneously: the All England Club's 150th anniversary and 50 years of Open tennis. According to Marketing Week, McCann London was appointed in 2015 to build a versatile communications platform, making 'Take On History' the third annual campaign under the 'In Pursuit of Greatness' strategic platform.
Wimbledon premiered the film during the 2018 French Open final to reach tennis audiences already engaged in competitive drama. The placement targeted viewers emotionally primed for the sport, making them a receptive audience for a heritage narrative connecting the All England Club's Victorian origins to contemporary champions Roger Federer and Serena Williams.
The Drum named 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' its Ad of the Day on 12 June 2018, praising its stunning animation. The campaign also received editorial coverage from It's Nice That, Marketing Week, and Campaign Live in the United Kingdom, reflecting significant industry recognition for the film's creative and technical ambition.
The Wimbledon 'In Pursuit of Greatness: Take On History' campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 70 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative craft, a well-anchored strategic platform, and meaningful industry recognition, offset by the absence of publicly verified audience performance metrics for the United Kingdom market.
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