Realizing your childhood dreams thanks to the power of VR…and building brand loyalty in the process
Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Serena Williams…Many of us had dreams of fame and fortune playing under the brights lights as we idolized the sporting world’s greatest names as children and young adults; an experience few ever get to realize. Leveraging the power of interactive virtual reality, Pepsi Co gave that exact opportunity to a few thousand lucky cricket fans, strengthening brand loyalty in the process.
Goal
Create a captivating event activation that engages with cricket fans of all ages to help build brand loyalty and advocacy for Pepsi Co.
Action
Design and develop a virtual reality experience allowing fans to step onto one of the world’s greatest cricket pitches and try their hand against a seasoned pro.
Outcome
A successful event activation that gave thousands of fans the opportunity to realize their childhood dreams and enjoy an experience they won’t soon forget.
Why Virtual Reality?
Virtual reality has the power to make us believe what we are seeing and doing is actually happen, when in fact it is not. Pepsi Co wanted to leverage this potential and give brand loyalists an experience that would otherwise be impossible. “We wanted to replicate the real-world achievements by actual players and give that opportunity to everyone.” A perfect use case for VR.
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Interactive Storytelling
Experience Design
Pepsi Co came to CM&D with little more than an idea and knowing they wanted to leverage the power of virtual reality. Working together the two teams were able to determine the best experience to accomplish all of the brand’s goals. Together they designed the perfect game-play mechanic, discovered a ‘dream-worthy venue’ (the bright lights of Melbourne Stadium) and intelligently integrated Pepsi Co’s branding into the final experience.
Immersive Brand Strategy
When working with stakeholders literally worlds apart (located in different contries), storyboarding, conceptual designs and frequent communication can be incredibly valuable resources. CM&D worked with the team at Pepsi Co to ensure all invested parties were kept up to speed and involved in the entire design process, helping to ensure final gameplay was as envisioned and the experience aligned with the companies branding goals.
Immersive Development
VR Development
With the designs in hand, CM&D went to work building a fun, interactive and easy to use VR experience that allowed users to ‘step on to the pitch and try their hand against a seasoned cricket bowler’. To help ensure high event throughput and a good user experience, the final game required no previous VR experience to enjoy and gave each player two opportunities to bat and score points. The final experience was designed to run on both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift platforms.
Engagement
Immersive Brand Activations
Before beginning development on any immersive project, it is important to understand how and where you will distribute the final experience; this project was no different. Pepsi Co knew the final game would be used as part of a traveling event activation, but was looking for guidance on how to best integrate the final experience. CM&D was able to help bring their team up to speed on immersive activation best practices, select the proper hardware and build a system that allowed for ‘live VR projection’ to nearby TV screens while the game was in use.
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