Showcasing Foam – and Fun with FWA

In October 2017, MediaMonks became the first company to win 200 FWAs. Since, we’ve kept winning – with our work for Wieden+Kennedy’s Game of Go, for Nike, just the latest to nab FWA of the Month.

Below, is an excerpt from our recent conversation with FWA (to read the full Q&A, scroll to the bottom of this page) –

What did you want to accomplish with the project?

After years of testing and perfecting, Nike’s footwear designers developed an innovative new foam sole that makes for a lighter, bouncier and more durable running shoe: Nike Epic React. Since the technology behind the bounce is invisible, we wanted to create an activation that showcased the foam—and the fun—in the sneaker, and put them to the ultimate test.

In a 400 meter fight to the finish, the Game of Go allowed runners to explore a world filled with foam, bubbles, confetti and shaggy hairs. By transforming Nike’s foam technology into a playable spectacle, we wanted to give a last nudge to both experienced and novice runners to throw on a pair and start running right then and there. We extended the experience to a worldwide audience with one the world’s first Snappables: a Snapchat Lens created to let people play the Game of Go on their phones.

What technical challenges did you encounter and how did you solve them?

To create a truly reactive experience, every aspect of the game needed to be rendered seamlessly, in real time. The enormous LA Live screens as well as the players’ individual displays needed to reflect the racers’ avatars as they made their way through the track, which meant some serious hardware horsepower was needed to make it all run smoothly.

A small army of high-end gaming computers and motion capture sensors tracked and translated the racers’ every move to rendered avatars. All the racers’ data and stats were then sent to a server, which in turn forwarded it to presentation machines—for three games at once.

Three hot facts:

• Both beginners, experienced runners and a few celebrities competed in the Game of Go. One of them, olympic athlete and decathlon world record holder Ashton Eaton, ran his way to the top of the leaderboards in 1:27.59 minutes.
• Before falling back into the installations safety harness, top speeds at the final sprint reached up to 14,86 miles (or 23,91 kilometers) per hour.
• The activation reached 4.5 million TV and 1.5 million out of home impressions. To top it all off, the Snapchat AR game racked up 25.6 million digital impressions.

The full interview was published on FWA on August 16, 2018.