Leveraging spiking golf interest around The Masters, Audi leveraged its recently renewed rights as the Official Innovation Partner for Sky Sports, Audi worked with Sky Media (the advertising sales arm of Sky) to create a golfing innovation called ‘Swing Design Sequence’ which provides insight into pro golfer techniques to help viewers improve their own performance and to connect them more closely to the game.
Part of the car company’s extended Sky Sports media partnership, the innovation features as part of Audi’s recent renewal as the Official Innovation Partner for Sky Sports: a deal brokered between Sky Media and Omnicom Media Group’s PHD and which takes the tie-up into a third year.
Objective
Audi’s primary aim for the initiative is to strengthen its position as a leader in innovative technology and electric vehicles within a fiercely crowded and increasingly competition landscape containing both traditional rival car companies and new emerging players – many of whom are also focused on making innovation and technology claims.
By reinforcing the brand’s tech leadership perception, the objective is to increase the proportion of drivers who would consider Audi.
The original tie-up with Sky Sports emerged after audience insight revealed that Audi drivers are 20% more likely to watch Sky Sports than the average UK adult.
The collaboration kicked off in 2022 with the aim of ‘bringing the best of both brands’ values to life’ by giving Audi an opportunity to co-create innovations on the platform to tell its brand story whilst enhancing the viewer experience (rather than just running ads or badge-up existing properties).
Activation
The ‘Swing Design Sequence’, which is being introduced into the 2024 ‘Audi Performance Zone’ from 11 April, sees the auto marque, Sky Media and Sky Sports collaborate with Skeletal tracking software company Sportsbox AI to ‘unlock the secrets of the elite professionals’.
Thus, during the sports broadcaster’s PGA Tour coverage, slow-motion video will be converted into avatars, enriched with data and analysed by expert coaches to explain how synchronization of the constituent parts of a golf swing can maximise performance. This offering fans and amateur players a deeper understanding of how the very best players generate speed, balance, power and accuracy and then offers a guide on how to apply these insights to improving their own golf game.
The ‘Audi Performance Zone’, which is filmed in a brand-new Sky Sports Golf studio, opens live during Sky Sports coverage of the RBC Heritage tournament in South Carolina and then through the summer’s key PGA tournaments including the Zurich Classic, John Deere Classic, 3M Open and Wyndham.
The sports media partnership initiative was promoted through a social, own platform on on-air campaign backed by PR via Mike World Wide / MWW.
“Vorsprung durch Technik is Audi’s DNA, with innovation at the heart. Our partnership with Sky Sports as its Official Innovation Partner continues to provide a unique and impactful platform that demonstrates our leadership in this area. We are incredibly pleased with the performance of the partnership, and the stories it is bringing to life.”
Audi UK Head of Marketing Tony Moore
“Working with Audi has become a true partnership and great to see it continue into its third year. The collaborative output not only integrates Audi seamlessly in our world-class content, but enriches the viewer experience as well.”
Sky Media Director of Planning Karin Seymour
“We at PHD are delighted to extend this campaign into a third year for Audi. The effectiveness continues to be clear in improving and maintaining brand metric scores and we see no reason why that can’t continue”
PHD Partnerships Business Director Tom Rovery
Outcomes
To date, the Audi and Sky Sports partnership has generated more than 4.7m views across the cricket, football and golf content for the sponsor.
Last year the partnership won ‘Best Use of Tech Innovation’ at the UK Sponsorship Awards and was also highly commended for its Research, Measurement & Evaluation where its eye tracking technology saw 1.3x more participants viewing vs Lumen’s norms (the standard metric measuring the attention funnel of digital integration).
The tie-up, a deal brokered between Sky Media and Omnicom Media Group’s PHD, extends the auto outfit’s partnership with the UK’s leading sports broadcaster into a third year.
It follows on from 2023’s PGA Tour ‘Audi Performance Zone’ and its ‘Power Meter’ initiative (blending state-of-the-art cameras with real-time algorithms to measure speed and accuracy) which was introduced into Sky Sports cricket coverage of The Hundred in 2022.
While last year saw Audi co-sponsor Sky Sports’ PGA Tour coverage through the launch of the ‘Audi Performance Zone’ which included editorial integrations of two bespoke Audi innovations:
> ‘Force Plates’ (inspired by Audi’s quattro technology – blending power and balance – measuring the force and balance that a golfer uses to create his or her unique swing through analysis of weight transfer and ground force and analytics linked to club head speed, ball strike and power of the swing.)
> ‘Zen Eye’ (which mimicked the functionality of Audi’s Adaptive Headlight technology and which brought the art of putting to life by showing audiences the perfect pace and line for any type of putt with a display on the green.)
These innovative in-game initiatives were then amplified via bespoke multimedia plans and storytelling content across TV, On Demand, Digital and Social in collaboration with Audi, PHD and BBH