Daniel Bonner Global Chief Creative Officer

ABOUT

Acura asked us to activate their "Oh What Fun It Is To Drive" Winter Sales Event by connecting with a hard to engage, advertising averse, socially connected audience. We did this by reinventing a holiday tradition. Classic slot car races provided a powerful insight and mechanism: rekindle the love and excitement of getting an iconic toy, and translate that nostalgia into the joy of considering a new car.

This led us to create the first ever Periscope powered race: a live slot car race event with a multi-camera broadcast, one factory race car driver and a sports network commentator, inviting users to #RaceYourHeartOut.
We customised and connected two 3D printed Acura TLX slot cars and each was given their own Periscope account. Users selected and followed on Periscope the TLX they wanted to race, they then joined the car's broadcast and simply hearted the screen to make it go faster. The more the viewers on each team that would ‘heart', the faster their slot car would go.

How did it work exactly? Well, every heart press was monitored real-time on both Periscope accounts. An Arduino then converted the heart into a unit of current and accelerated the corresponding slot car. The entire race was captured live via five cameras along the track and edited (live in real time) into a Periscope broadcast along with running commentary from Acura factory race car driver, Ryan Eversley and sports broadcaster, Greg Mescall.

Being the holiday season there was a charitable bonus feature - The purse for each race was worth a $500 donation to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. Two hours and twenty races later, we had generated over 60,000 hearts and raised $10,000. In total, users watched 75 hours worth of races and Acura brand media. Acura’s rate of hearts on Periscope increased 190%. Alicia Jones, Head of Social Media for Acura commented: “Messaging a sales event is difficult to do effectively or natively in social media due to the heavy-handed sales message,” she says. “Simultaneously, we’re always looking to try innovative ways to engage with fans in social. With this approach, we're able to do both.”

MADEIT CREDITS

Influencer:

Daniel Bonner was recognised as an Industry Influencer on 10th January 2016

Annual 2017 JudgeCreative Leader of the Year Project featured: on 17th March 2016 Pro member:

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Contributor:

Daniel Bonner has been a Contributor since 10th January 2016.

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#RaceYourHeartOut

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