Longines Fly with Dream ~ Head for French Open Looking for Taiwan's Tennis Budding Star campaign (Taiwan, China)
May 13 - 14, 2009
To sow the seeds of tennis and encourage dreams and courage, Longines Taiwan has initiated the campaign “Fly with Dream ~ Head for French Open, looking for Taiwan's tennis budding star”. Through this campaign a young tennis player – aged 8 to 12 - will be selected and will win the opportunity to play tennis with legendary tennis super stars Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf with other 15 young champions of various nationalities at the 2009 French Open!
In order to select the talented young player who not only has great skills in tennis, but also courage, a positive personality, and most importantly, a moral and elegant attitude, Longines has launched the recruitment campaign “Fly with Dream ~ Head for French Open, looking for Taiwan's tennis budding star”. This included the participation at the Taiwan national teenager tennis tournament which was held by the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association in May. It consisted of: a popularity on-line vote, formal interviews, and a speech during the press conference of the announcement. The score criteria counted as follows: 15% national ranking, 25% ranking in the tennis tournament, 20% one-line voting, 10% resume, 25% recruitment interview and the remaining 5% final recruitment at the press conference.
The children who joined the National teenager tennis tournament at the age of 8 to 13 and filled in the application form of the Fly with Dream campaign got the qualification to join Longines recruitment activities. In the application form, these kids were requested to fill in, they had to write personal information, biography, experience, and answer two questions. The first one was: “what do you want to tell A. Agassi & S. Graf if you got the opportunity to meet them in French Open?". The second: “Make a list of three reasons why you are the right kid to represent Taiwan at the French Open.” From May 1st until May 10th, 2009 the official campaign website held a popularity on-line voting of the participants. This reinforced the participants’ involvement, created more online discussions and a great awareness!
As the Taiwan national teenager tennis tournament came to the end, one-to-one interviews were organized for all the participants on May 13th to select top 8 candidates who can enter the final selection. The following 6 judges composed the jury: the Secretary officer of Chinese Taipei, a senior tennis journalist, a tennis critic, the Taiwan top male tennis player Mr. Jimmy Wang, the president of Wilson Taiwan, and Ms. Erica Chang, vice president of Longines Taiwan. A presentation meeting prior to interviews was arranged for all the participating children and their parents. By playing the film of the A. Agassiz College Preparatory Academy, Ms. Erica Chang gave a speech and pointing out that Longines not only want to encourage tennis skills but more importantly, help the children to learn about being confident, having the ability to chase a dream, and finally develop compassion, responsibility, sharing, and respect. Ms Chang added that this attitude will help them during their entire lives and is the key to become a timeless icon like A. Agassi and S. Graf in the future. During the whole day of the recruitment interviews, the children’s active but pure (positive?) attitude, oral expression and appropriate behavior touched the judges deeply. After having calculated the total score including the tennis ranking, on-line voting, and recruitment interview, the 8 best children were selected for the final recruitment phase at the press conference held the next day.
The press conference was held on May 14th with all the media and the parents of the 8 selected candidates. To relax the children and encourage them, a film of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy along with a video of Chi Lin Ling saying some words to cheer them up was screened before the start of the final phase. Then the 8 children came up on the stage one after the other to make a short speech about different subjects they had drawn before the press conference. It took the jury 10 minutes to calculate and discuss the final score before the tennis champion Jimmy Wang, announced the winner: ShiauYun, 9 year old, from Taichung City who will have the wonderful opportunity to represent Taiwan at the French Open. This was really an amazing moment and a once in a lifetime chance for this young tennis player. ShiauYun walked up to the stage with tears in her eyes to receive the award from Ms. Erica Chang, vice president of Longines Taiwan and Jimmy Wang. “Not only ShiauYun is the winner, but also all the children who have participated. They did their best with great courage and learned positive attitude. Finally, we, who have been involved in the process, are also winners as we have gained inspiration", said Ms. Erica Chang. Among other things, Longines gave a Longines Admiral watch to Jimmy Wang to thank him for his involvement in tennis and the campaign and wished him to win more international tennis tournaments by representing Taiwan in the future.
