Digital Connections

3DTV, Changing The Game For Sports Consumption In 2010

January 2010 has been something breakthrough in world of 3D Television, no longer are we talking about cardboard glasses with red and white cellophane lenses, things have moved on and instead we’re talking about:

• James Cameron’s Avatar racing towards becoming the highest grossing film of all time.

• All of the major TV manufacturers launching 3DTV models at CES 2010 in Las Vegas. 

• O2’s announcement that they’ll be screening the Six Nations Rugby in 3D at Odeon and Cineworld cinemas.

So how big is 3D TV going to be in 2010, and which areas will see the biggest impact?

Many people are asking “Haven’t we been here before with HDTV? “. After all we’ve all stood in Dixons or John Lewis and stared at a bank of TV screens, desperately squinting to try and see the difference between conventional TV and HDTV – dismissing the extra cost as too great.

But that isn’t the case with 3D - the difference is obvious, consumers don’t need to be convinced, its genuine innovation and that’s why I’m convinced that 3D will succeed.

Unfortunately there is a shortage of 3D movie content for 2010, a few classics will be made available and the film studios will begin to make more 3D movies – but there is still going to be a shortage of 3D available for the home.

Not everything is suited to 3D, I’m pretty sure that we won’t be watching Eastenders or Newsnight in 3D –actually the thought of 3D Eastenders chills me to the bone.

Gaming is tailor-made for 3D, it’ll be cheaper and easier to create 3D content and gamers stare directly at the monitor in immersive gameplay for hours so they’ll really get the 3D benefit.

But the area that I’m really interested in is sport and 3D. Sports content is the without doubt the best broadcast content suited for 3D, and the area that consumers will really engage with 3D.

ESPN have announced that they will be showing 25 football matches during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, including the opening game, South Africa v Mexico, on 11th June.

Through ad agency AIS, O2 have also announced that they are screening some of the RBS 6 Nations in 3D. It’ll be interesting to see how many rugby fans actually wish to spend a Saturday afternoon in an Odeon Cinema rather than drinking with their mates down the pub. Perhaps the 3D cinemas will attract a younger audience.  And for O2 it’s a room full of brand receptive fans - putting O2 at the forefront of innovation.

Some sports will be more suited to 3D than others, and for 3D to be a success then rugby and football have to be successful. It’ll be interesting to see the TV manufacturers marketing campaigns behind 3D, sports sponsorship must look very attractive – I suspect we’ll see an increase in sport / team sponsorship with an increase in ground advertising during the World Cup and during the  2010/11 seasons.

So how big is 3D TV going to be in 2010? Well I’m not saying that 2010 is going to be the year of 3D, but it’s definitely going to be the birth of 3D.

Apple iPod touch online advertising on Skyports.com

Brilliant piece of entertaining & innovative online advertising.

Unsure who the agency is but if they drop me a line I'll include the credits ;)

Thanks to Andy Kinsella at Glue London for pointing this one out!

Daft Punk in DJ Hero - Brilliant Idea !!!

Whoever at Activision came up with the idea of putting Daft Punk in DJ Hero deserves a big pat on the back!

The teaser trailer video is seeded on YouTube and pretty much everywhere (drop me a line if you seeded it and I'll give you the credit!), and screen shots are up on the DJ Hero Facebook fan pages.

I don't own a gaming console - but this is the type of game that makes me think twice about buying one.

Hat tip to @Trendplanner and Wired for pointing this out!

When Did My World Go Digital?

It's difficult to put an exact date on it.

Apart from mucking around on an old Atari 2600 in 1980 with my mates (surely playing Pong doesn’t count as “digital”?), my first digital encounter was as an 8 year old at the BBC in 1981.

My mother and stepfather both worked at the BBC in Newcastle, so after school I often went to the BBC after school and sat in the “control room”, or in the studio watching Look North go out live. However, it was in the control room where I used to “play” on the BBC Micro, and it was here that I discovered that my grasp of Breakout was far better than my grasp of programming in BASIC. 

1981 was somewhat of a landmark year, for Christmas I was given the mighty ZX81 (in kit form) with pressure sensitive keyboard. 9 year olds today would laugh at it, but at the time it was groundbreaking. The ZX81 brought computing into the home and surely must take a lot of the credit for where we are today. Once again my patience with BASIC was tested to the limit, instead I chose to upload Kevin Toms Football Manager via a cassette tape player, - and in hindsight it’s laughable. If I was ever to become a world class programmer then this was undoubtedly my opportunity to grab the first of my 10,000 hours (Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers). 

My parents also realised that I was never going to become a computer programmer or indeed a football manager. Despite asking Father Christmas very nicely, a ZX Spectrum never materialised – shame.

Safe to say that computers and pretty much anything digital took a back burner until University, even then in ’94 we were permitted to submit “handwritten essays”…. absolutely unbelievable.

My first job was at a marketing agency called International Marketing and Promotions (now Arc & part of Publicis) and we were lucky enough to have one computer between four – I cant remember whether it had t’internet or not, but I do remember faxing creative through creative campaigns to my client!

1997 … next job, ZGC, and one modem for an office of 30. We had to literally queue for the internet and I used to stay late to log onto nufc.com, although to be fair everybody had a shite Apple Macintosh of their very own. Luckily change came in ’98 and ZGC hit the big time, new offices and sparkly PC for all suits – for me the digital revolution had started.

Furiously fast forward 10 years (and a few jobs) and we're certainly past the point of no return, the world has without doubt gone digital. Digital is here and impacting our lives more than we could have ever dreamed.