Universal Worlds and Universal Passport was designed to transform the way fans engage with their most beloved IP’s and characters.
It proposed an interactive game that spanned Parks experiences, mobile AR games, AAA console games and virtual reality. It was built on a completely decentralised data system, allowing the digital user to be the key player, seamlessly moving between worlds and platforms to keep the play continuous. Real world meets the world of your dreams.
With the highly anticipated launch of the intimate Serena Williams documentary, ESPN wanted to find an innovative way to engage with fans and create excitement around the series.
They asked the Accenture ESPN Edge Innovation Lab + Accenture Song New Realities to help create an AR experience that would allow fans to step virtually into Serena’s world.
The result was a one-of-a-kind web AR portal experienced that used sound, video and design combined with a cutting-edge 3D environment to inspire fans and tease the feature content. The team brought together cinematic 3D techniques and complex 8th wall interaction design to set a new standard for mobile immersion experiences.
For the NEXT–Show 2024, I sat down with Timmy Ghiurau, Innovation Leader at Volvo Cars. Timmy shares his journey, insights on the future of mobility, and how Bauhaus principles shape his approach to AI and human-centered innovation.
My Keynote and Panel from CES 2024
Building on the success of our Boston Marathon AR partnership, Nike asked us to make the Women’s World Cup their most augmented experience ever.
At their flagship store in Sydney, we created ”The Dream Arena” – a fully immersive AR ‘portal’ experience that leveraged one-of-a- kind interactions. A complex, AI-driven selfie experience put fans faces into AR murals with a single tap. And users could sign up for membership inside the AR space to get special Nike Football swag.
We also created one of a kind augmented POS to celebrate the launch of the Phantom Luna. The work was celebrated by Nike execs as being their ‘most connected’ retail experience.
AiR Van an XR Experience in a custom Nike van that enabled marathon watchers to interact with various experiences and Nike product amidst the excitement of the marathon in the heart of Boston. It included a Kipchoge Trophy Room, a Retail Space and a Marathon Selfie experience.
The execution included Generative AI responsive design, membership sign up interactions, time sensitive retail “Drops” and exclusive merchandise transformed into 3D for AR shopping. It was the first fully virtual Nike retail experience, built with Niantic web AR technology.
The “Coachellaverse” is a long-form narrative developed by the Innovation Team + Meta Reality Labs at Coachella that will serve as their hub for use of innovative technology for the coming years of the festival. Their team is heavily invested in the development of NFT, AR, and even VR technology.
While the innovation team produces across many platforms – it was primarily the Spark work that formed the complete narrative to introduce Coachella fans to the “Coachellaverse”. Through our series of effects, a story was told of famous Coachella Art Installation Characters being lost around the globe and ultimately finding their way through space and time to arrive back at Coachella, a reference to the festival returning after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
To connect this narrative, we worked with the Coachella team to establish the visual language and the starting assets that our creators used to build their vision. The result is Spark leaving the establishing mark on a strong, multi-year music and art narrative.
In September 2019 adidas opened a new flagship on London's Oxford Street with an ambition to represent the future of retail. This new space would outpace traditional shopping venues, serving as brand hub and energy centre for adidas experiences, interactive installations and cutting-edge adidas product. They came to CS to help them bring the “Future of Sport” to life through
Spark AR.
The Future of Sport met the future of retail. Through three POS Target-AR installations, we celebrated adidas' most powerful product and brand stories. The experiences traversed product tech (4d), sustainability (Loop) and gaming (UNIFORIA). We then created bespoke signage, way-finding and video instructions that helped visitors discover and share via IG. At the launch, we helped Footballer David Beckham and E-sport legend Ninja battle and share the effects on IG, clearly bringing the Future of Sport narrative to millions of followers.
The Vogue Non issue was designed entirely by and starred women over 50…from the art directors to the models. It was Vogue’s first augmented reality powered issue as well!
This was a huge project - tons of amazing creatives and stakeholders. Big shout out to McCann and Ginevra Capece who quarterbacked this. But I helped with the creative tech for the AR execution and I’m super proud of it.
I worked on the team developing test projects and real-world use cases for the first viable ‘always on’ AR glasses. Pretty cool.
I worked on the the team to help develop the Meta Watch, which I’m hoping you’ll someday get to see in the future. It was not just another smart watch, but part of the Aria “Connected Wearables” suite. Designed to complete the augmented body.
People still struggle to properly care for their teeth. 90% of oral care problems are preventable by adopting regular brushing twice a day: in the morning and before bedtime. However, getting kids to brush their teeth can be tricky.
Signal wanted to find a way to teach children how to take better care of their teeth. The main goal was to create an engaging experience that stimulates dental care and makes brushing teeth an integral part of daily routine.
We have taken the existing fun web content of Little Brush Big Brush series and came up with an interactive AR game that would actually change kids' habits.
By motivating kids to brush twice a day, regularly for 21 days, the AR experience promotes behavioural change and teaches them the importance of brushing their teeth.
All to make tooth decay history.
During the COVID-19 crisis, parents and children were spending more time together than ever before. This unprecedented connection made space for unique conversations about self-esteem, body issues, and peer/media pressure… conversations that would have been challenging to broach with the distractions of school and society.
The Dove Self-Esteem Project has been helping young people feel more confident in their own skin since 2004. Dove is the largest provider of self-esteem education, reaching over 60 million young people in 142 countries. In 2020, Facebook formed a unique partnership with Dove, bringing tools and resources to leaders of amazing Facebook groups focused on parenting. We worked with the leaders of these communities, to offer a body image curriculum and one to one mentorship to help parents support each other, and their children.
Through this Pilot, we explored the impact of combining Dove’s Self Esteem curriculum with the passion and expertise of our parenting communities to reach even more lives. Our goal was to understand how brands and communities can come together on Facebook to offer education, tools, and support to families in need with social impact and community at the core.
The Results? 8000 Parents trained over 6 weeks to be better advocates for their child’s self-esteem and to feel poised and fluent to be the steward of a generation of confident women.
#Hometeam called on hundreds of adidas influencers benched by COVID-19 - olympic athletes, musicians, directors and designers - and created a rich content ecosystem designed to inform, inspire , educate and finally ignite the adidas global community during the pandemic. It positioned these luminaries as humans - parents, friends and neighbours - who were dealing with the same stresses and fears as all of us.
Thousands of videos, stories, events, classes and live-streams flowed out over 4 months in 5 markets spreading the message of hope and resilience and re-establishing adidas as a true advocate for their global communities.
Phase 1: Creator Series: the full pantheon of adidas creators shared their lockdown creative and fitness inspiration, and asked users to submit their own. Over 500K #Hometeam posts exploded into every market.
Phase 2: adidas U: Every passion vertical produced deep-learning modules, episodic content, dance parties across IG.
Phase 3: adidas Runners Mentorship beta: @adidasRunners clubs in NY and LA became the 2ns brand partnership to use the new Facebook mentorship platform. The goal was to keep isolated members of these passionate FB groups positive and healthy during lockdown.
Phase 4: Hometeam Heroes: a COVID-19 NGO challenge that let participants run, train and meditate to donate efforts to frontline workers through the WHO Covid-Solidarity Response Fund. The program ran from May 29 – June 7 and the million dollar goal was met in the first few days.
The Spark AR community and the Austin artist community came together in a brand new collaborative process, each learning from the other and producing something greater than the sum.
1. Ideate Together
Austin based HOPE Gallery artists were match-made with Spark AR artists. Sketches and inspiration for the works to be painted and designed were discussed.
2. Build Together
Working side by side, HOPE artists painted and AR Artists designed and coded. They adjusted and shared ideas throughout the 3 day installation
3. Enjoy Together
Each augmented mural was stickered with QR codes that instructed visitors on how to activate the facebook target AR.
The mural will remain as a gift of augmented artwork to the Austin community.
Ramadan is cluttered with ads every year. Every brand is trying to get it’s share of the audience’s attention, the biggest bulk of their budgets going into producing massive campaigns for the month. For older generations, hours of television are consumed, interwoven with long ad blocks, often taking the form of branded content.
However, when it comes to Gen Z, most of these efforts are futile, as their audience is nowhere near where their advertising is taking place. Gen Z will be on social media and gaming, missing out on the expensive efforts of brands.
Challenge
Can a brand effectively reach its audience by taking part in the things they love, and sponsor the events they care about, as opposed to creating massive campaigns that get lost in the clutter?
Execution
We worked with FB Gaming Partnerships and Solutions Engineering to build a 3-day friendly PUBGm tournament with 40 creators across the region. The tournament was live each night at 10PM local time, just after iftar.
USING ART TO COMBAT HATE AND DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORLD
Create Against Hate is an initiative sponsored by OpenCreate to establish a movement within the creative industry that aims to eradicate and make a stance against hate, discrimination, and extremism on our platforms.
Together with the insane design talents of Trollback + Co. I worked with the United Nations to create the language and expression of the next 15 years of Global Goals. A true honor.
Canon turned to social influencer Anna Akana, who has over 1.5 million subscribers to her YouTubechannel, for their “Rebel With a Cause” piece around anti-bullying.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of National Bullying Prevention Month, Akana came together with The Groundlings comedy troupe for a workshop for adolescents who have been victims of bullying. Through the three days, and through the video, they showed the teens how to use humor to take their situation and make it their own material.
"Our strategy for the Rebel With A Cause program was truly to break from the norm of similar campaigns in the past for camera brands. Shooting a campaign of this size entirely on a Canon EOS Rebel T6i DSLR is typically unheard of, and we wanted to showcase the power of the camera alongside the power of our Rebels,” said Rob Altman, Senior Manager, camera marketing, Canon USA.
Worked with a stellar Grey New York team to strategize the experiential and social launch for one of Pantene's most culturally relevant new product lines- Pantene Gold Series.
The National Parks Foundation is an American treasure. But millennials and minorities feel that The National Parks belong to another generation of Americans. To celebrate 100 years of parks we invited a new generation to Find Their Park, and launched "Park Exchange" - a series of futuristic National Park experiences in three of the nation's biggest cities.
While this was a ham-fisted effort on Uber's part to tell a pro-woman version of their story, the women that we spoke to were genuine entrepreneurs and pioneers. The work premiered in front of Hilary and Michelle on World Women's Day at the U.N. Worked with the late great Wyatt Neumann to capture.
Complete re-imagining both verbally and visually of three BBC Worldwide properties: BBC Earth, BBC First and BBC Brit.
Presence is everything for BBC Earth. We defined the transformative nature of the programming with the new tag line "Be Here". To further that, it was a given that the design for BBC Earth would revolve around their amazing imagery.
To enhance the feeling of a journey, we created circular transitional devices using layers of the immersive footage to transport us to different places. As for colors, we picked up nuances from natural phenomena and light. Add world class dramatic music by Michael Montes and you're done!
Worked with one of the longest suffering, most innovated tech creatives in the world to produce and market the Nike Fuel band, which won:
Cannes Lions 2012 Cyber Lions Grand Prix
Cannes Lions 2012 Titanium and Integrated Lions Grand Prix
Cannes Lions 2012 Titanium and Integrated Lions Titanium and Integrated Gold
Contributed integrated launch concepts, experiential thinking, writing and activation design.
100% in-camera glass and lens effects done with beam splitters and multiple simultaneous projections. Footage and post directed by me; shot by long-time David Lynch DP Fred Elmes.
BBC Brit is network for a certain kind of man.
This is where witty banter and madcap adventure meets intellectual substance - all with a healthy sense of the absurd. It's inspired by the things we talk about at the pub: Cars, Science, Adventure, Food, Comedy, Music and Sport. The frequent and honest display of misguided intelligence has also made this network a favorite of many amused women.
Brit is the newest member to join the BBC family. Launching worldwide this year.
Worked with peerless design shop to craft and win this mammoth pitch, and then continued to shepherd the project to it's completion with big strategic thinking, messaging and scripting... and the first new tagline in 31 years. Truly a momentous achievement for both the Weather Channel and Trollback, as the utilitarian network was transformed into a vibrant, inspiring and modernized hub.
MasterCard Check In to the Ballgame invited people to check in to various Yankee Stadium seats placed throughout New York City. Through Facebook Places, Check in to the Ballgame turned into a game to find the seats. Clues to each location were dropped via social media. Using Facebook, fans checked in to each location for a chance to win tickets to a Yankees game. Winners got the VIP treatment at Yankee Stadium and MasterCard got millions of impressions for their Priceless New York platform. Check In to the Ballgame launched Priceless New York using just the streets of New York, with help from the best seats in the house.
Quarterbacked the social-media driven Mastercard "Priceless Cities" experiences which became blueprints for connected activations. This was some of the first work produced by the experiential offering we started at RGA.
Accenture Song used NVIDIA's Omniverse platform to generate highest fidelity Defender vehicles from computer-aided design data. Coupled with the NVIDIA Edify-powered generative AI microservice we enabled the creation of cinematic 3D environments via conversational prompts. The result was a fully immersive 3D scene, harmonizing realistic, generated environments with a digital twin of the Defender vehicle.
The rapid evolution of AI and XR devices is ushering in a new generation of immersive experiences, where 3D data is consumed via both 2D and 3D interfaces. Accenture Song uses NVIDIA Omniverse and AI microservices across its industry portfolio, including automotive.
To usher in the next generation of Windows—the most powerful Microsoft operating system yet—we put on the biggest event Times Square has seen to demonstrate everything Windows 8 can do. For three days, we took over Times Square, syncing 39 massive digital signs throughout the area. Reps invited people to try it out for themselves at street-side stations, also synced to the digital signs—games, apps, pics, videos, seamlessly shared with all of Times Square. And every night, spectacular digital murals were created. It all added up to a launch as fun and engaging as Windows 8 itself.
The avatar & the virtual stage: Navigating the new realities of film production | CogX Festival 2023