Studio Output Sports Insight Report

Bright ideas for inspiring brands.

Insight Report.

Summer of Sport. July 2012As you may expect, this month's insight report focuses on sport. In a landmark year like 2012, sports marketing continues to be an innovative field, with brands looking to create a point of difference in their communications both on and offline.

With Euro 2012 and Wimbledon behind us and the Olympics imminent, sports brands and sponsors alike are vying to make their message heard in a noisy marketplace.

Here, we look at some of the most interesting campaigns.

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

Nike and Adidas have sought out a new way to showcase the technology in their shoes. Nike’s parallax-scrolling website for their range of Air Jordan trainers allows users to sculpt their own web experience, while Adidas’ running site lets customers explore the features of each product.

Continuing the theme of user-led web experiences, Footlocker created 'Sneakerpedia', a site that appropriates content from its users and positions them as experts in the footwear fashion field. The site isn't overtly branded, which gives user content greater prominence on the site and, in turn, strengthens consumer trust in the brand.

Product showcase.

Creating new shopfronts online

Nike Air Jordan http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/aj2012/

Adidas Running http://www.adidas.com/us/content/running/

Sneakerpedia http://www.sneakerpedia.com/

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

New technologies and apps are being developed to encourage people to keep fit and feel the burn in more innovative and emotional ways.

'Nexercise' is an app that builds on the strengths of games like 'Draw Something' – allowing you to challenge other users and compete while undertaking real-life exercise.

In a similar vein, Reebok’s 'Promise Keeper' app encourages people to keep fit by playing upon their guilt. When users decide not to exercise it lets everyone know online, scaring people into exercise to avoid public embarrassment. Gah!

'Sensum' also uses scare-monger tactics to get people moving. It builds on a user's emotional responses and changes content to encourage exercise accordingly – shouting at you when you aren’t trying hard enough or cheering you on when you’re feeling low. We think there will be brand partnerships with this device in the near future.

Mobile technology.

Innovating exercise

Nexercise http://www.nexercise.com/

Reebok Promise Keeper http://reebokthepromisekeeper.com/

Sensum http://www.sensum.co/

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

You may have seen the Olympic 'Move to the Beat' campaign that features artists such as Mark Ronson and Katy B paired with wider experiential campaign activity. However, we felt that the slightly smaller scale 'Coca-Cola Cheering Truck' activity led to a much more emotive and personal response from the fans it came into contact with, and its appearance at the Argentinian final made sure it left a lasting memory for all football fans.

2012 sees focus shifting from brands and athletes to fans and their involvement and we think there are two reasons for this: the Olympics taking place in many people’s back gardens and a somewhat dented ego following our exit from the 2010 World Cup.

Cadbury have looked to crowdsourcing to create singalong tracks aimed at inspiring Team GB athletes to victory; while Sharp have taken a look at studying fans, looking into behaviour, beliefs and support during the European Championship.

On your marks...Brands run to sports in 2012.

Coca-Cola http://bit.ly/ykKjAH

Cadbury bit.ly/M1aFGW

Sharp FanLabs http://www.sharpfanlabs.com/

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

Insight Report.

Pod Takeover. Visual TrendsThis month we also see the third of our pod takeovers, from Design Director Stewart McMillan, Producer Emma Graham and Designer James Cuddy, who make up one of four creative pods here at Studio Output.

Over the last few weeks we've been busy working on Augmented Reality apps and product films for Dunlop, photoshoots for PlayStation, shoots for new Sony virals and a revolutionary stage show for an iconic Olympic venue!

Patterns of (t)reason.

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

Haphazard imagery is seemingly thrown together to create a new beautiful 'ugly' aesthetic.

Rebelling against centuries of tradition in using complementary colours, imagery, fonts and pictures – this new movement seeks to re-define our idea of what is appealing or acceptable in visual communication.

Out with the rule book!

Grafik Rituals http://grafikrituals.tumblr.com

Pretty Ugly http://shop.gestalten.com/pretty-ugly.html

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

A focus on craft, engineering and an attention to detail is a theme we're currently seeing across many areas.

Beautifully shot product photography, and minimal compositions focus on the material qualities of objects. This approach has been applied to great effect by Carl Kleiner for Intersport.

We've also seen some interesting collaborations between brands that have a strong focus on craftsmanship such as Paul Smith and Mercian Cycles.

Engineered geometry.

Alfred Dunhill Document Case:http://bencollette.com/productbyprocess/?p=791 Paul Smith Pop Up: http://www.paulsmith.co.uk/paul-smith-world/news/paul-smith-launches-pop-up-cycling-space-at-harrods,442,PNP.html

Carl Kleiner for Intersport:http://www.carlkleiner.com

Things Organized Neatlythingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

Insight Report. Summer of Sport.

Generative design approaches image making through code. A visual idea is translated into a set of rules that can can allow a program to generate images around given parameters.

For Nike, interactive agency YesYesNo have built software that visualizes a years worth of runs from the Nike+ website.

The resulting imagery and patterns bring a visual new dimension to data.

Sketchy behaviour.

Field: Digital Paintings http://www.field.io/project/digitalpainting

Bibliothèque: Ollo branding http://bibliothequedesign.com/projects/branding/ollo/

Paper.js http://paperjs.org

Nike City Runs:http://yesyesno.com/nike-city-runs

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