Fans divided over Uber Eats ads during Australian Open TV breaks

They’re the TV commercials that are integrated into live tennis action, blurring the lines between spruiking and sport — and they have divided fans. The Uber Eats ads have the marketing world on their feet after their clever late-night shoots with tennis’ top players.

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They’re the TV commercials that are integrated into live tennis action, blurring the lines between spruiking and sport — and they have divided fans.

The Uber Eats ads appear as the last commercial in ad breaks in live coverage of Australian Open games featuring star players, and at first seem to be the return to the coverage — but then the player on court orders a delivery of food.

Hatched during a series of meetings involving Tennis Australia, Channel 9 and Uber Eats late last year, the campaign was hastily assembled by Australian design company The Special Group and shot just before the start of the Open.

Tennis fans were left confused, believing the match was being aired during a break.

But it was really an ad for UberEats.

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It was a logistic exercise of giant proportions, according to agency managing partner Cade Heyde, who had to compete with the dizzying schedules of the world’s best tennis players — squeezing late-night shoots in between practice sessions, massages, physio appointments and sleep.

They also managed to pull off a production miracle of sorts, by co-ordinating the outfits the players were wearing in the commercials with what they would agree to wear during the actual matches.

2018 Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki was also part of the advertisements that have left the marketing world taking notice.

“It was definitely challenging because we had access to the players for only about 90 minutes each,” said Mr Heyde, who worked with former world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, Nick Kyrgios and women’s No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki.

“What we would generally do, and this was the case with Rafa, was we would shoot the ad almost entirely using a stand-in, and then Rafa would come in and we would have him do a few takes of his lines before he was whisked away again.”

The players involved in the ads, such as Rafael Nadal, filmed the ads late at night and agreed to wear certain outfits for the game to match the ad.

What resulted is being hailed as a revolution in modern advertising — a weird hybrid of marketing and “real” content that leaves viewers wondering where the commercial ends and real life begins.

So effective was this blurring of the advertising lines, viewers flooded social media at the start of the Open claiming to be legitimately confused by the ads — which have the marketing world taking notice.

Originally published as Fans divided over Uber Eats ads during Australian Open TV breaks