ALERT SHIRT

TitleALERT SHIRT
BrandFOXTEL
Product / ServiceFOXTEL SPORTS PACKAGE
CategoryA03. Brand or Product Integration into an existing programme or platform
EntrantCHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company CHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Contributing Company CHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Contributing Company 2 WEARABLE EXPERIMENTS Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Leon Wilson CHE Proximity Executive Creative Director
Sam Harris CHE Proximity Copywriter
Tom Wenborn CHE Proximity Art Director
Sam Maguinness CHE Proximity Head Of Digital Craft
Tom Lear CHE Proximity Digital Designer
Diego Trigo CHE Proximity Technical Director
Tony Chilvers CHE Proximity Head Of Interactive Planning
James Needham CHE Proximity Head Of Brand Planning
Susan Lyons CHE Proximity Head Of Customer Experience Planning
Richard Taylor CHE Proximity Head Of Digital Creation
Di Nash CHE Proximity Head Of Tv Production
Elizabeth Bierre CHE Proximity Senior Account Director
Shannon Mason CHE Proximity Senior Account Manager
Josh Armstrong CHE Proximity Senior Account Manager
Ben Moir Wearable Experiments Co Founder
Billie Whitehouse Wearable Experiments Co Founder
Ed Smith Foxtel Executive Director Of Sales And Marketing
Jesse Stephens Foxtel Head Of Acquisition Marketing
Emma Lambourne Foxtel Acquisition Marketing Manager
Tara Langtry Foxtel Acquisition Marketing Executive

The Campaign

In recent years, Australian broadcast media has seen a surge in branded entertainment, mainly in the form of integrated branding on commercial television. Whilst this has given brands the ability to appear more seamless within television content such as lifestyle shows and sport, there is little evidence these brands are adding any value to the consumer experience. The market opportunity was therefore to create a branded piece of content that would go beyond product integration and offer the viewer a deeper emotional experience that reinforced our bran’s value.

Results

Rather than just say Foxtel was better, we created a content experience that proved it. A world first in wearable technology, Alert Shirt literally connects fans to the game, allowing them to feel what the players feel live as it happens on the ground. The shirt works in conjunction with a custom-built phone App that captures real-time game data and relays it via Bluetooth to electronics inside the shirt. Here it is converted into powerful sensations that simulate the live sporting play, whether watching on TV or live at the stadium. Through the App, wearers can adjust their intensity, view a real time breakdown of sensations, and share their Alert Score with friends. Working with leading players to understand how the body feels during competition, we created a sensory language that matches the physical reality of professional sport. These included: a thumping heart whenever the game is on the line, the shock of a big hit when players collide, the sinking feeling of every costly mistake, lungs burning every time your team puts in a hard effort, and a rush of blood when your team is on the up. The project involved collaboration of multiple stakeholders from various disciplines, including fashion, technology, advertising and manufacturing. It is an idea inspired by the “internet of things”, a product wired to the individual need and delivering the experience instantly.

As Australia’s largest pay TV broadcaster, Foxtel was looking to increase its market share of the Australian Rules Football viewing audience. The problem was fans already received great coverage of their sport on free-to-air TV, so there was little incentive for them to pay for a service that wasn’t perceived to be much better. Foxtel’s challenge was to offer the audience a content experience that went beyond what fans already enjoyed for free. The resultant Alert Shirt campaign was targeted at club members and announced through a mix of social media, direct mail, PR and outdoor advertising near game venues.

Give some idea of how successful this campaign/entry was both for the client and with the consumer or target audience. The more quantifiable statistical information you can give the better. True to its original ambition, Alert Shirt has provided Australian Rules Football viewers with a content experience that goes beyond passive brand integration, to one that is highly active and provides a deep emotional connection with the physical intensity of the game and its players. What started as a DM brief is now a commercial product, with 4,000 Alert Shirts already manufactured to connect new subscribers and existing valued customers to their teams. In the first week of launch, Alert Shirt reached 2.1 million people through Facebook, created 400,000 Twitter impressions and received 135,000 video click-throughs - not bad for a country of just over 20 million people. Beyond the Australian football community, the conversation took off globally, attracting news coverage from Delhi to Detroit including Sky News, The Wall St Journal, Mashable and Contagious. But most significantly, we’ve changed the rules of broadcast television, transforming professional sport from something you watch to something you’re physically involved in.