IBM Seer Wimbledon - Ogilvy London
IBM
Issue 12 | September 2009
Agency
Ogilvy London
Creative Team
Creative Directors:Emma de la Fosse, Charlie Wilson
Other Credits
Pavlos Themistocleous, Jamie Romain, Dylan Smith, Maciek Strychalski, Davide Sciola, Paul Randall,Richard Barker, Will Howells,Nicholas Bennett, Nina Mynk, Scott Seabourn, Giles Rhys-Jones.
Date
July 2009
Background
As well as providing world class tennis, Wimbledon is also right up there in terms of big crowds and long queues. IBM have covered the live scores and match stats for the championships since 1990. If they could also provide live coverage of every aspect of the tournament – from the length of the queue in the Pimms tent to the number of spare seats available on the practice courts - then tennis fans would be able to negotiate the crowds and avoid the queues.
Idea
Working with mobile tech experts Mobilizy, OgilvyOne developed a groundbreaking app called Seer Android. Point your phone at just about anything in Wimbledon and Seer allowed you to see what it was while giving you a live update about what was happening there.
So even if you were standing in the middle of a large crowd, not only could you see where the loos were, you would be able to discover if any of them were out of order and how long the queue was. Heard some rapturous applause from Court No 1? Seer told you who was playing, what the score was and if there were any spare seats available.
Have a look at the demo film made while testing the app.
For the techies amongst you, the app works off a Google Android platform and uses a combination of GPS and an inbuilt compass together with live video and data streaming to create an image recognition technology experience that is fully annotated in real time.
To enable as wide an audience as possible to experience a smarter Wimbledon, OgilvyOne also developed Seer Aggregator, an app which pulled all Twitter feeds pertaining to Wimbledon, from the players and pundits to IBM’s very own information scouts, to your phone.
The apps were supported by a broad campaign of work involving PR, social media, posters, leaflets, T-shirts and, naturally, umbrellas.
Our Thoughts
This is great. It’s a very smart way for IBM to take their ownership of the Wimbledon facts even further using new technology so that it really enhances the user’s experience and highlights IBM’s leadership at the same time. I can see this application working really well in bars around Auckland.