The Campaign

Having past global success with ‘Inside Anfield’ - a 360 degree VR tour of the LFC home ground - we knew there was a keen desire from millions of fans to experience their beloved Anfield. But our SiB partnership challenged us to re-think how we could share a virtual experience without eyesight. Working with LFC, we identified Pat Rodaway. LFC Member, season pass holder and hardcore Reds fan. Pat is also profoundly blind. Whilst Pat has never missed a Liverpool home game – he has also never seen one. A thought that fascinates. So we went on a journey - guided by Pat – to experience Anfield as he does. Through the sense of sound. Going beyond normal audio recording, we consulted 360 degree sound designers and cutting-edge binaural microphones - shaped like human ears - allowing us to produce a never-before-heard immersive soundscape design of game day at Anfield.

Creative Execution

Our hero audio experience captures the journey of a blind Liverpool fan on game day. With 360-degree clarity fans hear the unique sounds of Liverpool in a whole new light. Using a cutting-edge binaural techniques, a specially design ‘ear shaped’ microphone was positioned at the centre of the KOP to capture fans singing their anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in full voice. We created five supplementary films that featured Pat’s story and LFC players experiencing the recording and their passionate reactions. All content was housed on a SCB campaign site and propagated to millions via SCB and LFC owned media. Partnerships with Goal.com, ESPN FC and FourFourTwo ensured hardcore football fans discovered our experience, whilst short-form video took our story to the masses on YouTube.

The campaign was a massive success delivering over 115 million media impressions from over 9.9 million fans listening to the binaural experience in the launch week alone. The campaign reached 36.7 million people across 20+ nations with an average engagement rate of 2.26% (three times the industry average). Most importantly, visitation to Seeing Is Believing’s website jumped 998.6% after the activation and $92,328 was raised for the group. Even non-LFC fans applauded the campaigns “Even as a Man U fan, can’t help but respect this amazing story. #respect” Edward Edwardo (Twitter)

Standard Chartered tackles avoidable blindness with its charity Seeing Is Believing (SiB). In conjunction with World Sight Day, we produced a 3D binaural recording of a live match day at Liverpool FC’s (LFC)home ground, Anfield. Using cutting edge binaural microphones - which mimics the human ear - this immersive soundscape was created with long time LFC fan, Pat Rodaway, who is blind, yet attends every game. Now fans, regardless of visual ability and distance, could feel the passion of Anfield and experience the excitement of thousands of fans in the Kop singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” before kick off.

LFC has almost 600 million fans worldwide. And few will ever experience the excitement of a match day at Anfield. This provides a challenge to sponsors, but also a massive opportunity. It has been said that radio is a superior story telling medium to TV ‘because the picture is clearer’ – so we put this power of fans imaginations to the ultimate test. We would seek out new technology that would allow sighted fans right around the world to not only satisfy their desire to feel the passion on gameday at Anfield – but also better appreciate what it is to live without sight. All delivered to a global football audience of millions on World Sight Day And in doing so engage millions of LFC fans globally in a conversation facilitated by their love of the team, but focused on the Seeing is Believing Community program.