In April, Cameron Black became the first blind journalist to commentate on a live game during the NBA Playoffs through Michelob Ultra’s ‘Dreamcaster’ platform which features AI-driven technology which mixes real-time sounds, vibrations and braille data to create a vivid sensory experience for the vision impaired.
For Game 3 of the East’s New York Knicks vs Cleveland Cavaliers series, the NBA’s official beer partner’s Dreamcaster initiative enabled Black to offer visually impaired hoops fans with an immersive, real-time, sensory experience of the game.
The AB InBev brand’s marketers teamed up with agency FCB New York to co-develop the project as part of a seven-year partnership focused on innovation and entertainment and through Dreamcaster, Black showed that sport can be more accessible than many had previously imagined.
The initiative was informed by the brand’s commitment to sports marketing and ‘It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It’ mantra and also by the fact that 284m blind and visually impaired people around the world are unable to enjoy the game as they could/would. So the brand’s marketing team sought to enable them to ‘enjoy the game as never before’.
The live initiative was further amplified through a series of showcase online videos which dropped between 8 and 26 May and which included ‘Best of Commentary – Dreamcaster’, ‘The Run of Show – Dreamcaster’, a ‘Dreamcaster Titanium Case Film’ and a ‘behind The Tech’ spot.
“We’re proud of how the partnership between FCB and Michelob Ultra has brought the brand’s ‘It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It’ platform into the spotlight and we wanted to expand the platform’s limits, adding accessibility to its spectrum,” outlined FCB Creative Partner Alexandre Abrantes. “As the Official Beer of the NBA, we zeroed in on a problem: millions of basketball fans around the world struggle to follow live games because they’re blind or visually impaired.
The strategy was for the team to immerse itself in the problem and find the best partners to do it with: which led to consulting with specialists and game experts
According to the agency, the challenge ‘demanded a ground-breaking solution’ and so the team ‘harnessed the tech-forward spirit that fueled past activations’ to develop proprietary technology which uses touch, haptics (simulating user interactions with physical objects) and sound to create ‘an experience that would immerse blind and visually impaired fans in live basketball so deeply, that they would understand the game without seeing it’.
FCB Global Creative Director Danilo Boer explained how the agency worked on the project with partners like the American Foundation for the Blind.
“It turned out we needed hundreds of different sounds to represent every single thing that happens on court. And to make it even more precise, we had to add a secondary layer of haptics and vibration animations for Cameron,” explained Boer. “To make the experience understandable for those who can see, we developed a visual representation of it, a new AI OS called AURA (Adaptive User Real-Time Analysis).
“We also partnered with Sports Radar: the official data provider of the NBA,” added Boer. “The plays that were happening in real time would go to the cloud, and AURA would convert the data into audio and haptic vibrations in milliseconds so that Cameron could call play-by-play and add colour commentary during the live game. The braille was providing non-stop stats. Just like broadcasters have stats about players and the game, Cameron Black had the ultimate version of that, all at the reach of his fingertips.”
Outcome
The campaign’s key outcomes included being experienced by 21,000 in person in Madison square Garden and 10.4m on live television, while a further 21.1m engaged on social media. With ABInBev committed $115m to its inclusivity investment activities.
Comment
The brand and agency marketing and tech team now plans to release a branded Dreamcaster app and also to produce a documentary about the project.
In partnership with the NBA, the Michelob Ultra team is scaling the technology for blind and visually impaired fans everywhere in the form of a mobile app which it hopes to launch in the NBA 2023-24 season and which will then extend beyond just basketball into other sports such as baseball, football, soccer and golf.
While Cameron Black himself, as well as consulting with the beer brand and FCB team on the app development, is also interviewing with US TV networks for a dream sports broadcasting role.
This initiative is just one strand of the Michelob Ultra/NBA tie-up and other projects have included accessibility programs such as ‘NBA Launchpad’ (a league initiative to explore, evaluate and pilot emerging technologies to advance the NBA’s basketball and business priorities aimed at attracting entrepreneurs, talent and companies which can innovate the NBA’s ecosystem).
On 6 June 2023, Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev signed a deal with the NBA which expanded the brewing giant and league’s 25-year relationship and elevates Michelob Ultra as the NBA official global beer partner spanning the NBA, WNBA, NBA G League, NBA 2K League, USA Basketball and Basketball Africa League and which includes a rights package aimed at globally increasing its courtside presence and visibility.
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