Branded Entertainment is strictly regulated in France by CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel), which makes it particularly difficult for a brand to be clearly associated with the created content. However, for the past two years, brands have been gearing towards the production of content that draws genuine interest from the consumers. 'We Were There' was considered by France Televisions as a pilot branded entertainment campaign.

'We Were There' celebrated 40 years of partnership between BNP Paribas and French tennis by creating a one-of-a-kind web documentary on the last 40 French Opens and demonstrating the brand's historic values: generosity and loyalty. From players to spectators, referees to ball boys, officials, doctors, celebrities, 'We Were There' captures all the memories, stories and anecdotes from whoever attended Roland-Garros, on the court, the stands, or in front of the TV. We collected testimonies of players, former players, referees, ball boys, stewards, doctors, coaches, journalists, spectators, viewers and listeners to produce hundreds of unpublished stories told by their own protagonists, some well-known, others never heard before. Videos of the stories were embedded onto a digital 3D representation of the French Open stadium, available on wearetennis.com. People were able to navigate in Roland-Garros and browse through all the videos. The more people would contribute to the platform posting their memories, the more they would increase their chance to win one of the 15 dreams that we made available. All of the dreams are a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that money can't buy: bring the trophy to the tournament winner, perform the toss for the final on the central court, be the official tournament photographer, perform the tournament draw, etc. The campaign started with a teasing phase enjoining tennis fans to post their untold memories of the tournament, followed by a second phase where we advertised the dreams.

'We Were There' was a typical 360° campaign: print, digital, outdoor and national TV support led to wearetennis.com, which redirected to an online platform were users could browse through the content. BNP Paribas's 2500 branches advertised the campaign, with the most prominent offices being fully covered with the campaign's key visuals. The entry of

the stadium of the French Open also displayed main artworks from the campaign, with the free newspaper distributed to spectators every day of the tournament also featuring the print ad on its back cover. The stadium main screen broadcast the best videos from the campaign.

The French Open is one of the most anticipated events in tennis. With

??94% awareness and 3.95m of average viewership throughout the tournament, it’s one of the biggest sport exhibitions in France. 'We Were There' resulted in the production of 149 short videos, 20 from which were broadcast on national television. Online videos were streamed 700K times, 600K users visited the dedicated campaign website and BNP Paribas’s 'We Are Tennis' saw a 20% increase of its Facebook fan base. It also led to over 100K BNP Paribas clients setting an appointment with their bank manager during the tournament period, with the chance of having their meeting moved in the stadium during a tennis game. 63% of the French population remembered being exposed to the campaign.