To celebrate the start of the new 2019/20 season, La Liga partner Orange España created a world-first augmented reality in-stadium stunt that brought a colossal soccer superhero to life at the game between RC Celta and Real Madrid.
Working with experiential innovation agency Wildbytes, the synchronised AR stunt appeared in-stadium through a custom-built app
Instead of the usual on-field entertainment, the 23,000 fans at the Abanca Balaído Stadium for the game between the Real Club Celta de Vigo and Real Madrid – well, those who had installed the app – saw a giant football player appear on the pitch – via augmented reality – for a seven-minute halftime show.
The stunt started with giant golden footballs falling from lightning-laden skies above the stadium, before a colossal golden superhero style player appeared to levitate the balls causing a tornado and then scoring an epic bicycle-kick.
The synchronised visuals were designed to be seen from different perspectives depending on where spectators were sitting in the stadium and linked with the ground’s 360 sound system.
The 3D AR content was also viewable on mobile devices and on the stadium screens.
While before the 3D AR show, Google Assistant’s capabilities were demonstrated to the fans via a sequence with the MC.
The initiative, which took place on Saturday 17 August when La Liga’s new season kicked off, saw mobile network operator Orange team up with Google for an epic football spectacle which the brand claimed as the ‘first augmented reality synchronised show in Spain’.
A Wildbytes teamed created the custom app-led activation to promote Orange’s new on demand TV service which provides its customers access to football matches and to the Google Assistant after penning a new partnership with Google.
The stunt was experiential agency Wildbytes’ response to a brief to create ‘a tech-driven innovation for the Spanish football league kick off for the Orange, Google and La Liga tie-up.
The app was made available across Europe on both Apple and Android.
To drive app downloads before the game, the initiative was promoted prior to the match and on match day through a social campaign, print flyers, speaker announcements and a spearhead spot.
El partido del @realmadrid y el @RCCelta del pasado fin de semana ofreció la primera experiencia de realidad aumentada para smartphone en un estadio: https://t.co/RUNC9Owqhg
— Orange España (@orange_es) August 21, 2019
Plus there was a promotion for those who downloaded the app which automatically entered them into a competition to win a range of tech-led prizes.
Leo Da Costa, senior creative technologist at Wildbytes, commented: “Orange and Google enlisted our help to come up with a new way to enhance the half-time experience while drawing on the brands’ two key elements: entertainment and technology. We’ve worked on AR activations before, but one of the main challenges for this project was the large-scale and many roving elements. 30,000 spectators were in attendance of the game, so we had to ensure that the AR content would be displayed in the best possible quality and correctly synched with a large number of devices while bearing in mind the possible limitations in connectivity.”
“What is exciting is that activations like this open a vast number of possibilities in terms of mass-scale entertainment. In its beginnings, augmented reality wasn’t used widely for more than one person at a time. What we can see now is that as we employ it on large scale events, it can become more immersive than ever before.”
Comment:
This stunning experience certainly offered something more compelling and engaging than the run of the mill half-time entertainment at most European football matches.
Just when you thought marketers had run out of good ideas for leading edge AR sports initiatives, comes another surprising and notable tactical approach to the technology.
The activation didn’t just mark the start of the new season, but also Orange’s new TV service in Spain which includes a package with live football games and is part of Orange’s wider promotional campaign running under the tagline ‘those who know choose orange TV all football free today the season’
Orange paid rival Telefonica €300m for La Liga and UEFA Champions League coverage in a sublicensing deal that saw it become the second Spanish telco company offer matches through the 2019/20 season.
Orange is offering its La Liga coverage for as little as €3.95 a month throughout the season provided fans also subscribe to its Orange Cinema and Series packages, while the Champions League and Europa League coverage will be priced at €15.95 per month.
Links:
Orange Spain
https://www.youtube.com/user/canalorange
https://www.facebook.com/orange/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/france-telecom-spain/
La Liga
https://www.facebook.com/LaLiga
https://www.instagram.com/laliga/
https://www.youtube.com/user/laliga
Wildbytes
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