Super Bowl 2021 was the first, and hopefully only, Super Bowl with COVID looming over it. Traditionally Verizon hosts a large scale in person activation on the grounds outside of the Super Bowl. But, 2021 changed that.
So, rather than building a large activation onsite we built in Fortnite. Working with the best builders in Fortnite we modeled and developed the stadium based off of Raymond James stadium.
The stadium featured 5 different game modes each designed and built with NFL stars.
And during Super Bowl Week we held celebrity tournaments from the Stadium on Twitch hosted by Desus and Mero.
The result? Verizon’s most successful Super Bowl ever, with 40+ Million visitors to the stadium, 34 milling livestream views and a whole slew of awards.
Curious? It’s still up in Fortnite Creative:
Map Code: 5926-8650-7282
The stadium was a dynamic environment with 5 different games each had their own level of competition and kept players coming back.
We modeled the stadium exterior off of the Super Bowl LV’s Raymond James Stadium but we couldn’t just stop there we had to add Verizon and Fortnite design to it.
In the stadium, we fully realized how a stadium would look in game blending the real world and Fortnite.
The holidays are a time of joy for children. But each year, 1 in 5 in America don’t get a present.
We created a way for Verizon to turn the magic of wishing on a star into a reality.
To celebrate the release of Disney’s new movie Wish, Verizon collaborated with Toys for Tots to change that. By creating an AR experience that let every child in need wish upon a star. And used the power of the network to connect them to people who could make them come true.
We collected thousands of holiday wishes from children in need. And turned every wish into a star in the sky. Then we used AR and the power of the Verizon network to let everyone make those wishes come true. People held their phones up to the sky, selected a star, and granted a child’s wish, with a simple donation.
Password: WSH
Traditionally, back to school is a time brimming with optimism, a time solely focused on the potential of the new school year. But, 2021 was different with an extended pandemic and new variants that optimism waned. Walmart set out to change that.
So, we created Walmart Homecoming a first-for-the-brand multi-city, hybrid event that brought three famous artists: Imagine Dragons, Chance the Rapper and Kane Brown, back to their schools to perform, meet and thank their old teachers and giveback to the communities that gave so much to them.
This created a national moment with a livestream hosted by Madison Bailey and Noah Schnapp, featuring these performances, the interviews and giveback moments. Creating an incredibly successful activation for Walmart and gave a lot of communities renewed excitement about the upcoming school year.
Password: WMT
WATCH THE STREAM: The livestream hosted by Noah Schnapp and Madison Bailey used the performances, teacher interviews and showed Walmart giving back to the communities.
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was looking to reach a younger demographic that doesn’t watch linear broadcast TV. What they do love about the show though—are its games.
We created the first-ever late night show that you don’t just watch, but you can play along with in Fortnite.
We recreated Rock Center, Central Park and Times Square and built 5 Tonight Show inspired games where players can; hop in a cab and drive through Manhattan avoiding exploding manhole covers and runaway hotdog carts to find and deliver The Root’s instruments, and even get access to a 1:1 replica of Studio 6B, to get a first hand glimpse of the studio all while completing fun puzzles and games. We even recreated some of the Tonight Shows most iconic games like Giant Pong—with a Fortnite twist.
Password: TSF
Verizon, Apple, Riot. These three gigantic brands each with their own specific objectives wanted to come together to launch three different products at the same time: the Verizon 5G Network, iPhone 12 Pro and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
Oh and do it while COVID is happening.
So, we created the Verizon 5G Wild Rift Invitational the first-ever 5G League of Legends gaming tournament.
A five-on-five tournament, best of three tournament, featuring celebrities and pro gamers. Fans chose the champions and scrambled the teams. Streamed live to Twitch, creating a unique esports moment never seen before.
Password: WR
The Teams: Each team was a mix of celebrities and gaming influencers. Fans chose the team make ups and the champions they played.
The Thrones: Each player had their own separate – and properly spaced – thrones where they played each with an iPhone 12 Pro powered by Verizon 5G UWB and if their team shifted from red to blue, the throne would too.
The Prize: And what were the players, well, playing for? To have their likeness carved forever in one of our massive turrets and placed in Riot’s own esports arena.
The Twitch Stream: We live streamed the invitational on Twitch to drive the most scale and engagement. Every element had the polished style of a major esports event from using pro League of Legends casters to heavily featuring gameplay to interviews and more. It became a massive production.
Today, an artist’s greatest instrument isn’t their guitar, keyboard or notepad. It’s their phone.
To show the role that mobile technology plays in the creative process, we partnered with superstar Shawn Mendes and gave fans the opportunity to experience the making of his album, first-hand. As they stepped into his world, they could see how he relies on his phone every step of the way to create.
We created an immersive, sensory, multi-room experience allowing fans to walk through the several chapters of Shawn’s album-making story and Shawn himself led them through via video messages sent to their own phones.
Password: SM
This Is Malibu: We started the experience by recreating the location of Shawn’s inspiration for his new album, the Malibu Coast. With sounds, sand and never before released footage of Shawn Mendes writing his new album.
This Is The Woodshed: Then we recreated Woodshed studios complete with two functioning recording booths for fans to actually record their own version of a Shawn Mendes song.
This Is The Stage: Then we let fans on stage with an authentically recreated stage surrounded by projections an actual live Shawn Mendes concert. So, they truly felt like what it was like to be on stage as Shawn.
Of course, fans were wrapped around the block for the experience, cause oh my god, Shawn.
American Express has been a massive support for music, specifically live music. But since the pandemic, live music has disappeared all together. Which means, American Express needed to create their own shows.
So, we created a new way for American Express to host shows, virtually.
We relaunched American Express Unstaged as a virtual concert platform where we would create one-of-a-kind shows that blended the real world and virtual world together. First up, Alicia Keys.
We along with her team, production partners, Aggressive, and a state-of-the-art XR stage, created an ever evolving hour-long extended reality show.
The result was a forward thinking XR show that has been replicated by different artists over and over since.
The Show followed a three act structure that shifted sets, tone, mood, lighting all in real time. We didn’t didn’t put her on stage, we build an ever evolving world around her.
Behind the Stream: Card Members got exclusives like merchandise bundles, virtual meet and greets and an exclusive Card Member interview directly after the show.
In the beginning of 2018, Justin Timberlake came out with a new album, Man of the Woods, and with every large album release there are a lucky few who get to hear it before anyone else. This time, those lucky few were American Express Card members.
We turned the average album listening party into American Express Listening Experiences that transformed the listening environment completely to complement and overwhelmingly enhance the experience of the first-time people heard Justin’s new album.
We took over spaces in NYC and Paisley Park, yes Prince’s house, and transformed them into forests perfect to hear his new record.
The results were insane with articles in every major entertainment publication leading to over 2 billion impressions from three activations.
Password: JT
We activated for 2 nights in NYC. Here we took a blank space and created an actual forest with real trees, bird and stream sounds, and a real cabin.
At each event we custom cut wooden vinyl of Justin Timberlake’s first single, Filthy, only 1000 were made for guests and they were immediately put up on eBay with prices fetching up to $75.
Just for kicks, we got the guys from Noma, one of the best restaurants in the world, to curate a menu for the guests that included ants with black garlic and rose oil and grasshopper pancakes.
Prince’s house. Prince’s house. Prince’s house. For the second round of listening parties and what acted as his album release party we brought the forest to Paisley Park.
This time we create a digital version of the forest and projected it all over the walls, completely surrounding guests with a forest in the middle of Prince’s very own in-home venue.
We also created loads more exclusive merch/activities for guests, including silkscreen shirts, which have become official JT tour merch, a custom forest scent creator and even a place to roast marshmallows, inside.
For additional scale, we created streamed out the album release event on American Express and Justin’s social networks, a first for American Express.
Coke Zero rebranding and reformulated to become the all new Coke Zero Sugar. To celebrate the launch Coke wanted to take it out on the road and have everyone try it out for the first time. They wanted to taste to be front and center. Which posed an interesting challenge. Could you remove all other distraction and focus in on taste?
Inspired by insolation tanks we creating the first-ever taste-focused isolation tank. It removed all other senses, allowing guests to zero in on the new taste of Coca Cola Zero Sugar.
These custom built mobile vending machines toured coast to coast and gave out a huge amount of taste only samples to every skeptical, why-did-you-change-my-Coke-Zero, drinker.
Coachella is a completely overwhelming experience with all the music, art and people. Everything is demanding your attention. We wanted to give Card Members not just an experience they can recharge in between sets. We wanted to give them unique access formerly reserved only for those who are on stage.
So, we created Headliner Life: an experience inspired by Coachella headliners’ green rooms. Three green rooms. One for each of the festival’s headliners connected together with a backstage environment. Everything from the lighting, to the guitars, to the stickers, to the flowers, to the seating, to the records on the shelves was curated solely based off of artist preferences.
The activation was massively successful with accolades from everyone who experienced it, tons of social and press coverage.
Immediately upon entry guests walked through a tunnel as they would if they were getting offstage. Everything in the entrance was inspired by something you would actually see just off stage at any given festival performance.
Our main space was fully inspired by the backstages, soundstages and concert venues around the world. Here Card Members could get a drink, charge their phone, fill up their water bottle and relax before getting back to the festival.
Ariana’s Room: Our first green room was inspired by Ariana Grande’s likes when she’s backstage herself. We used elements found in her own green rooms and amplified them.
We had Ariana’s own nail artists, Britney Tokyo, stop by to create custom nail art for Card Members.
And we even sold exclusive Ariana Grande merch. These sweatshirts were one of the most popular items on the festival grounds and now go for way more on the secondary markets.
Tame Impala’s Room: Keeping in line with Tame Impala’s green room needs we made a green room experience complete with guitars, amps, vinyl, rock books and even pinball machines.
Gambino’s Room: Taking cues from Childish Gambino’s aesthetic we created a green room based off of his preferences. Here we had Jason Markk shoe cleaners on deck cleaning everyone’s desert blasted shoes.
At night, the space radically transformed by taking actual stage lighting a bathing it in colors usually reserved for performances.
Found in most green rooms are walls where artists sign their names, leaving a mark at the places they play. Our space was no different where we gave Card Members the opportunity to do the same as headliners.
Baseball's not half bad, sitting in the bleachers, eating hot dogs, drinking beer and acting like you know exactly what's coming next because almost everyone in the stands who knows baseball think of themselves as a coach.
We tapped into that insight by creating an emoji-based pitch count mobile game for Verizon customers to not only act like they know what's coming next but win cool stuff while doing it. I could go in more detail, but the write ups are pretty good.
The Indy 500 is the largest sporting event in America. Surprised? More race fans attend it that the Super Bowl, World Series or NBA Finals. That’s a lot of eyes.
We gave Verizon customers unprecedented access by giving them the opportunity to text the entire raceway. They texted us and we wrote their messages up in the sky for all to see. People texted in everything they could think of: driver love, song lyrics, the website for a Star Wars cosplay guild and even a proposal (she said yes).
It even started an unintentional meme, people pointing at the Indy 500.
“…you’re ruining the magic of Christmas.”
~ Angry grandmother calling the client (actual complaint, still makes me laugh)
Orchard Park is a shopping centre in the middle of nowhere, British Columbia. It's the biggest mall of its kind between Calgary and Vancouver. Since it's so big with so much selection Santa has fired the elves and does all of his shopping there. Now the elves are out of a job. This campaign is their harrowing tale.
Elf Sandwich Boards: We placed sandwich boards that were held up by elves all around the town Orchard Park is located in.
This is the main page for the holiday promotion. When Orchard Park is open the elf is working a job that one would do during the day. When someone visits the site the hair clippings will fall to the ground and with your mouse you can sweep them away. At night, the elf in the street sweeper will go in reverse when you roll your mouse over the vehicle.
