Brief Explanation

Brief: As an official broadcaster of the Rugby World Cup 2011 TVNZ created the 'One Love' campaign. One Love builds on the huge excitement around the tournament and enables fans to participate and share in their love for the game. Our brief was to create an experience that brings fans together during every live broadcast, no matter where they were, or how they were watching the game. Objectives: To encourage a large, ongoing community around each live rugby match, engaging the fans through expert commentary and supplementary information. Solution: We focused on understanding the disruptive nature of digital technology, and how it can be leveraged to create new and valuable experiences. Grandstand is a great example of augmenting a traditional television offering with an innovative unique digital channel. TVNZ was the first in the world to launch a dedicated TV On Demand offering for the PS3, and with Grandstand they continued to pioneer in the digital media space. Grandstand is a web-based chat-room that also includes conversations from various social networks. Any user can join in, and twitter users can post through Grandstand to their twitter accounts. Grandstand allows users to become a fan of a team, showing their team colours. Users can also decide if they want to hear from everyone, or sub-groups such as one team's fans. Grandstand has also been built from the ground up using HTML5, Javascript and CS3 to be accessed via desktops, notebooks, tablets or mobile devices. Results: By kick-off, Grandstand was the only unifying platform in existence for rugby fans all over the country. It became a centrepiece for TVNZ's rugby coverage, bringing commentators, sports personalities and the fans together. Conversation spread across social networks, news broadcasts and live game coverage. By the end of the tournament, TVNZ had literally created their own grandstand - a unique and compelling experience for over 15,000 people, irrespective of how they were watching the game, even if it was on a competing channel. With digital innovation, we didn't so much redefine the boundaries, as create an entirely new media property.