July 13, 2011 | Volume 10, Issue 4

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Dear Faithful Readers,

Remember when signage at a ballpark, stadium, or arena use to be static? Yea...me neither. In our industry, we have been able to leverage new technologies into additional sponsorship dollars...tying in corporate partners that want to take advantage of the latest and greatest tools to share their message with our fans. The problem: our society has adjusted, learning to tune out the bombardment of advertisements. Cutting through the clutter has become increasingly difficult every single day. To account for this, teams are continually searching for experiential marketing technologies; new ways to keep fans attention and subsequently keep sponsors happy. This is why I was instantly drawn to what the Cleveland Cavaliers were doing with CrowdWave. As you will read below, CrowdWave's vision gaming technology allowed the Cavs to create an avenue for sponsors to share their message, all while creating a fun in-game experience for the fan!

Enjoy the Feature,

Joe Shapero
[email protected]

P.S. Love the feature? Hate it? Wish we covered a great idea or program your organization is doing? Email me with any and all of your comments from this week's issue and we will include them anonymously on our NSF LinkedIn Discussion Board!

Cleveland Rocks their Fans with CrowdWave!

Cavaliers incorporate existing partners into vision gaming technology.

CONTACT

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Kate McShea
Manager, Game Presentation
Cleveland Cavaliers
Phone: (216) 420-2154
Email: [email protected]

Phillip Vanstone
Director, Client Services
CrowdWave
Phone: (613) 722-2613 x 705
Email: [email protected]

ORGANIZATION

Cleveland Cavaliers

PROGRAM TITLE

Cavs' "Dance Off"; Arby's "Fast Break"; Cleveland Clinic's "Let's Move It"

OBJECTIVES

In today's constantly evolving technological world, fans are looking to their favorite teams to keep them up to date on the latest and greatest in technology. Keeping up with the same pace as the tech evolution is vital to a team's ability to remain engaged with their fans, at a game or not. To this, the Cleveland Cavaliers were interested in enhancing their fan's in-game experience. The Cavaliers were noticing a drop in fan engagement during corporate sponsored in-game announcements and wanted to improve fan involvement to keep sponsors content. To do so, the Cavaliers' organization had an entertainment driven agenda, and took the opportunity "to find the latest and greatest in game day presentation," stated Cavaliers' Manager of Game Presentation, Kate McShea.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

With in-game enhancement in mind, the Cleveland Cavaliers partnered with crowd gaming technology, CrowdWave, to debut their interactive gaming system during the 2010 NBA Playoffs. CrowdWave displays vision gaming technology on the arena's jumbotron which enables audiences to play an interactive game against one another, section vs. section or level vs. level.

CrowdWave debuted at Quicken Loans Arena on April 9th, 2010, providing Cavs' fans with a mass participation crowd controlled dancing game, the Cavs' titled "Dance Off." Resembling the popularity of the videogame Dance Dance Revolution, "Dance Off" interacted with fan's hands rather than their feet...having spectators wave their arms in the direction instructed by the jumbotron. The movements were detected by CrowdWave's Vision Interactive System, which uses a series of high-resolution cameras placed around the arena to capture crowd movement and convert it into game play. This highly sophisticated system allows the Cavs to not only create an interactive game for their fans, but also create competition between fans by rewarding larger amounts of interaction per arena section. In this case, "Dance Off" determined a winner based on the section that most accurately followed the jumbotron's hand directions. "Sports have always been a passion," stated CrowdWave's President, Mark Edwards, "and I saw what the Wii had done with gesture-based game controls. My background in the video game industry convinced me that we could bring the same level of interactivity to tens of thousands of fans - literally getting the crowd into the game."

The immediate success of "Dance Off" led to the formation of future CrowdWave games with the Cavaliers, the first being Cleveland Clinic's "Let's Move It," followed by Arby's "Fast Break." The Cleveland Clinic's "Let's Move It" was a version of "Dance Off," including characters from the Cleveland Clinic in 2D form. The game was branded with Cleveland Clinic's logo and slogan and the basic underlying message of the game promoted the Clinic's objective of being active, moving, getting healthy, and having fun. The Arby's "Fast Break" highlighted CrowdWave's race technology, featuring specific arena sectioned animated Arby's food and drink - a sandwich for the lower bowl, a shake for the arena's Loudville section, and curly fries for those in club seats. Which ever section that waved their hands the craziest as well as created the most noise, moved their section's particular Arby's food or drink faster to the finish line, with the winning section receiving an Arby's coupon.

Click Here to view in-arena video of Cavalier fans enjoying the crownd controlled dancing game, "Dance Off."

MEDIA

The Cavaliers only promoted "Dance Off," "Let's Move It" and "Fast Break" during in-game entertainment. No publicity was used for these programs.

PARTNERS

"The first time we used CrowdWave, we knew we wanted to continue using it, but game day budget couldn't support it so we needed corporate buy in," McShea acknowledged, "We asked our corporate partnership team to come in and pay attention to CrowdWave and when they saw the response in the arena they were immediately intrigued." The Cavs' knew they didn't want to over expose CrowdWave's system to their fans, so they only offered the opportunity to a limited number of existing partners. Cleveland Clinic and Arby's jumped at the opportunity because CrowdWave's technology fulfilled their objectives; breaking through the highly conglomerated clutter of a multi-sponsored team. "Cleveland Clinic made logical choice because their 'Get Up and Move' campaign aligned perfectly with what CrowdWave's technology accomplishes," stated Steve Meyer, the Cavs' Senior Director of Corporate Partnerships. For Arby's, Cavs' Corporate Partnership Consultant Ellen Narain stated, "We were looking for a creative, interactive idea that would let (Arby's) highlight their dollar menu items, and CrowdWave assisted achieving all of those goals."

RESULTS

The Cavaliers were ecstatic with the results of CrowdWave's gaming technology, receiving wonderful feedback from their fans and having the chance to involve two corporate sponsors in Cleveland Clinic and Arby's. Most importantly, the program allowed the Cavaliers to successfully assist Cleveland Clinic and Arby's with each of their marketing objectives, keeping two on-going sponsors very happy. "The great thing about CrowdWave is that it seamlessly integrates the goals of corporate activation with entertaining, fun things for fans to do and for the minute and a half time out they are completely attached to the promotion," said McShea. According to Narain, "The participation from our fans has been beyond anyone's expectations, and they (Arby's) will be continuing to build equity in the program throughout the 2011-12 Season."

Click Here to view the jumbotron graphic video for the Arby's "Fast Break" game.

LOOKING AHEAD

The immediate success led to a three season extension between the Cavaliers and CrowdWave to continue using their vision gaming technology for upcoming seasons. CrowdWave continues to expand its gaming technology, with the Cavaliers already experimenting with their questions and polling opportunities, which they look to enhance in the future.

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