With a known quantity like NBA superstar Stephen Curry, how do you continue to surprise and delight an audience inundated with athlete marketing in the men's personal care space? How do you get an audience eager to flip through feeds a reason to stop and experience more than just a 15 second skippable ad?
The answer was to provide viewers with a new and unique take on the on-court basketball experience and to make the viewer part of the content - something they couldn't skip or ignore.
The Degree Men team developed a unique spin on Curry's on-court presence, one that embraced new technology and gave fans something they often don't see - an up close and immersive view of Curry and his signature moves right on the court in 360°, all under their control through their mobile device.
With only ten minutes of production time allotted to social, the team maximized Curry's time; we outfitted his training facility with some fancy 3D cameras and captured Curry in one-on-one style, showing off his signature moves and style and designed the content to give the user complete control in how they viewed the content. Designed as a 360° video experience, the content lets viewers witness Steph blow past them for the layup, drain a three-pointer right over their head, and break the defense of virtual defenders for a culminating shot - all with designed graphics and information that impart just how much Curry moves on the court.
The effect was successful in imparting a look and an experience with Stephen Curry that fans had never seen, and it provided the brand with new opportunities to reach consumers with their product message - that our deodorants, designed for greater efficacy with movement, are the only products that can keep up with Curry.
Our 360°/VR content attracted considerable positive attention and engagement from consumers. In a low-interest category like men's deodorants, we produced some incredibly high interest content:
*Over 15 MM views on the content
*A 27.3% view through rate
*Beating social benchmarks by 59%
Twitter loved our content so much, they used our ads to launch their 360° functionality in feed; further, they acknowledged the content as one of the best creative uses of the platform in the world. And the brand loved the work so much, they even made version for VR headsets, making Degree part of the first wave of native advertising partners in VR.
We took the known of Curry, matched it with the new and unknown of 360° video and VR, and made it impossible to ignore.
We made brand history!