| Title | ALERT SHIRT |
| Brand | FOXTEL |
| Product / Service | FOXTEL SPORTS PACKAGE |
| Category | A09. Use of Mobile Devices |
| Entrant | CHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA |
| Entrant Company | CHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA |
| Advertising Agency | CHE PROXIMITY Melbourne, AUSTRALIA |
| Production Company | WEARABLE EXPERIMENTS Sydney, AUSTRALIA |
| 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 |
4,000 shirts were produced 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.
Rather than just say it, we created an experience that proved how Foxtel gets fans closer. 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. 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 play. Through the App, wearers can adjust their Alert Intensity, view a real time breakdown of sensations, and share their Alert Score with friends. Media focused on creating targeted awareness amongst club members. A series of online videos showing captains involved in the product’s R&D were seeded on team Facebook Pages, linking to a dedicated microsite. This was followed up by personalised, club-themed DM, PR and street posters close to prominent stadiums.
Australian Rules Football is a national obsession. As a result, fans already get great coverage of football games on free-to-air TV. For the last two years Foxtel, Australia’s largest subscription television broadcaster, had sent a personalised DM piece to the member base of each Australian Rules Football club with modest success. Those who hadn’t signed up in previous years were unlikely to do so given the offer was actually more expensive than in past years. The key challenge was therefore to convince footy fans that subscribing to pay TV would get them closer to their team by creating an experience that justified the price. Whilst this claim could be rationally supported by Foxtel’s superior coverage of games and their in-depth analysis, we needed an idea that would engage fans on an emotional level and create conversation amongst the broader football community.