Virtual Reality Turns Messi Into Iron Man For Samsung & Marvel Avengers Campaign

A virtual reality film-led campaign promoting Samsung’s partnership with Marvel turns a team of sports stars into super heroes culminating in Lionel Messi morphing in to Iron Man.

This ‘We Are Greater Than I’ campaign collaboration between the Korean conglomerate and the comic entertainment giant is part of the multi-faceted partnership promotion for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

In addition to Messi, other athlete ambassadors involved include Green Bay Packers’ Eddie Lacy, pro-surfer John John Florence and cyclist Fabian Cancellara into the comic book heroes.

The initiative is based on two short films following these sports star endorsers (and two fans) as they train to become superheroes.

Part of this training sequence sees them use virtual reality (VR) and in a further activation strand Samsung has reproduced the VR experience for Marvel fans and Samsung consumers via a downloadable Avengers Experience app designed for the Samsung Gear VR headset.

The campaign, developed with agency 72andSunny (with CG by Blur Studio and VR by Framestore) markets both the movie and the new Galaxy S6.

The first episode – ‘Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and Samsung Mobile present “Assemble Part 1” – sees a boy, a female engineer and Samsung ambassadors Messi, Florence, Lacy and Cancellara recruited for a secret mission via mysterious suitcases (each of which match an Avenger character).

While by the end of Part 2 that mission is extended to all Avengers fans around the world through the app-based VR experience.

Both films racked up three million viewers in their first week.

The ‘Battle For Avengers Tower’ Experience – a 360 degree interactive video – is available on Android Phones and Google Chrome, while the fully immersed experience is only available at The Oculus Store with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Gear VR Headset.

Comment

That to me is the sticky part.’

As if Messi hasn’t achieved enough in recent days after leading his side Barcelona to the UEFA Champions League Final and the top of Spain’s top division, but now this?

Now he’s a comic book action hero as well as a soccer hero.

Is there no end to his skills?

By mixing its sports ambassadors with a movie tie-in, this campaign is yet another example of the trend for activation that blends entertainment silos to create cross-connections between assets and maximise assets, reach and appeal.

As well as entertaining and/or informing, the best marketing content and partnership activation should lead the consumer/fan somewhere and in this case – and in this case that ‘somewhere’ is a personal VR experience.

‘Something was missing. They [the films] were dead-ends, so we thought it would be much more interesting if the films dropped you off into something you could participate in,’ explains 72andSunny partner and executive creative director Bryan Rowles.

‘We ended up with the idea that, whether you’re an athlete or a normal person, wouldn’t it be cool to be a superhero — wouldn’t it be cool to be an Avenger?’ Rowles adds.

‘Between Samsung and Marvel, they were really open to doing something new…and creating a gift for fans of the Avengers, so they are able to geek out on even more through these mobile initiatives.

Links

Samsung/Marvel Partnership

http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/…

Battle For Avengers Tower Experience YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdTm7Vpape0&feature=youtu.be

Samsung Mobile YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/SamsungMobile

Samsung Galaxy Website:

http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/

Samsung Mobil Google+:

https://plus.google.com/+SamsungMobile/posts

Samsung Mobile Facebook: