Berlei lingerie will suddenly look a lot more game, set and match.
Champion tennis player Serena Williams has done a new big campaign as the face and body of Berlei, after first committing as an ambassador for the brand back in late 2013.
You might think that’s a bit of a gap, but Williams has had other things on her mind, like winning her 18th Grand Slam. The campaign, which is for the new sports bra range Bounce Masters, will be cannily launched just as Williams arrives in Australia for the Australian Open in January.
It turns out that William’s relationship with Berlei actually goes back longer than just an advertising contract. Her mother, Oracene Price, bought her a bra over ten years ago.
“I’ve been a fan of Berlei long before I started working with the brand,” she said. “My mum discovered the brand in Myer on a trip to Australia 10 years ago and I have been wearing their sports bras ever since.”
Considering Williams’ career in the past ten years has involved a lot of on-court action, that’s a heady endorsement. And apparently her mother’s interest was the source of the Berlei contract: a fitter at Myer noticed that Price was buying huge amounts of Berlei, told the brand, and a long-term relationship followed.
So it’s not like other sports ambassadors who insist that they’ve been wearing the brand ‘for years’ when really they just discovered it last month: this is an organic relationship born out of pure accident.
The new campaign, shot on location in Miami, delighted the brand’s senior marketing manager, who told the press that the current World Number 1 was “a natural behind the camera” and “such a professional.”
Williams and her sister Venus were criticised at the start of their tennis careers for their flashy on-court outfits, but Serena revealed that stripping down for Berlei was actually rather stressful. “I’m a normal woman – I can get self-conscious,” she said. “But I think that is just natural for women to feel that way.”
It’s a much better move for Williams than her rival Maria Sharapova’s foray into marketing; Sharapova tried, and was forbidden, to change her last name to ‘Sugarpova’ for the 2014 US Open. Game officials were not pleased.
Thus far the world’s most lucrative fashion deal for an athlete is David Beckham’s; his underwear line is one of the world’s most successful. American ballerina Misty Copeland has entered the frame too – she’s the new face of Under Armour’s campaign I Will What I Want, focussed on female athletic wear.
But if you want the precedent of tennis stars in underwear, look to Bjorn Borg. The former World Number 1 tennis champion from Sweden has run an underwear company with his name on it since 2007, and it’s been a smash hit all over Europe.
Will Williams step into those shoes? As of yet she’s shown no impetus to design anything herself. After all, she’s still busy winning games.
Image: Williams for Berlei.
