We are absolutely thrilled to announce that our work for NTT DATA at The Open Championship has won this year’s ‘Experiential Marketing Award’ at the UK’s most prestigious sports awards – The Sports Industry Awards #SIAwards2020

Award submission summary:

Overview

For the first time in history of golf, for a sport built on data, we have uncovered a new tournament narrative, engaging fans through a shared, heads-up, data-driven storytelling experience. Intercepting 8 billion datapoints from the tournament and transforming them into technology enabled, highly engaging and instantaneous data presentations on screen. Democratising the data, packaging and delivering them through intelligent synchronisation enveloping the live broadcast extending the visual experience left and right.

Located in the Spectator Village, the NTT DATA ‘Wall’ has become the centrepiece of the spectator experience, creating a new destination and experience for fans and driving the sport into a new era of engagement
The experience provides a single location from which you can watch all 18 holes, providing fans of all ages and abilities a front row seat, where an epic moment for a few could become a story for everyone.

Objectives

- Use NTT DATA’s capability as a systems integrator and IT innovator to transform the spectator experience into a more inclusive and accessible fan experience making a positive contribution to the sport and its fans
- Use our latest innovations and new technologies, for the good of all fans, to only prove our ability to deploy advanced technologies in challenging environments
- Transform this sponsorship into a new business opportunity and case study for new tech and business growth

Execution

- Driven by a custom cloud analytics platform extending the field-of-view left with player and hole data and right tournament data summaries and comparative player data
- Live news from across the course was mapped in 3D and presented news to fans as it happened
- 144,000+ Spectators viewed 33,056 shots accompanied by 15 data stories/min
- Delivered on a screen the equivalent size of 218×42-inch TVs
- The data is synchronised via OCR within 0.2secs to the live broadcast delivering data perfectly timed to enhance the viewing experience
- Presented real-time through animated infographics rendered into virtual 3D environments
- Smart cameras on the wall used NTT DATA’s emotional detection to track the viewing fan’s reaction to the live action
- Using this data and NTT DATA’s AI we created automated video highlight packages based on fan’s most popular moments of the day
- The data story was extended through social channels via a centralised content hub

Results

- The golf fan experience has never been closer with In excess of 60% of 240,000 spectators visited the Data Wall over across 40 hours of play
- Increasing the dwell times in the fanzone by approximately 25%
- 182 pieces of data content created for social media reaching 10+ million people directly