Star Power created a dynamic face painting filter, leveraging Spark AR technology, to help fans show their loyalty and stay connected during the Indian Premier League tournament.
Objective:
The India Premier League (IPL) is a two-month long sporting league. No matter how committed fans might be, it is only human to lose steam over the course of a long tournament. Star Sports wanted to give fans a tool to stay immersed, connected, and engaged through the length of the tournament and constantly stoke both loyalty and rivalry.
Target Audience:
Fans not only support their own teams but will also pick a side between two rival clubs. Fans engage by picking a team even when their favorite club wasn't playing. Start Sports focused on sports enthusiasts that were 18 and older.
Creative Strategy:
Star Sports created an experience that allowed users to come back every day and express support, giving the brand an excuse to create more content. Each experience would start with a typical sporty header aesthetic, showing the teams facing each other in an A versus B format. The names would appear in team colors and all aesthetic elements would reflect the team colors of the day, changing dynamically based on the roster.
After this, the filter played the iconic IPL bugle and instructed the user to turn their face in the direction of their favorite team for the day. This would trigger a cool, aesthetically pleasing, transition warp. Once the warp settled, the user's face would have their face painted in team colors. With each blink, the user could pick from three designs for face paint. The user could also turn the other way, to support the rival team. Moreover, the platform featured a 3D stadium that would rotate 180 degrees every time the user would turn his/her face.
Context:
Star Power created the first-ever dynamic FAN AR filter on Facebook/Instagram that changed daily in accordance with which two teams were playing. In all, the same filter worked like 70 filters in one. Fans could pick a team, choose between three different tribal face-paintings and get transported into a stadium to the sound of the iconic IPL bugle.
Overall Campaign Execution:
The experience was divided into three parts:
Star Power ran the campaign via Facebook's AR ads. The brand utilized Dynamic Date Track — a new Spark AR functionality that had the ability to identify the date and time on a device and play content accordingly. For this campaign, the content was the choice of team, pulled from live scheduling. Once identified, the filter would load the two teams playing that day or time. The use of the filter grew organically through the course of the tournament and engaged fans to keep showing support for various teams.
Star Sports enjoys the privilege of being the top sports entertainment destination for Indian households. Given that IPL is the marquee event that brings together a billion fans for two months, with varied and changing loyalties, the brand strived to stand out and create synergies with the league in the fans' mind.
Results included:
