Jaguar Panasonic Racing Team's Paris Motor Show Formula E Vritual Reality Experience

To celebrate the launch of Panasonic Jaguar Racing’s entry into Formula E, the team offered visitors to the Paris Motor Show a dynamic, interactive opportunity to experience the excitement of its new electric race car.

Set in a bespoke, branded, virtual reality theatre erected on the Jaguar Land Rover stand, users are positioned in a self-contained racing seat (fitted with a rumble pack), complete with a force feedback steering wheel system and a VR headset.

Using HTC Vive linked to the latest gaming technology and high end 4D experience systems (including Unreal Engine 4), sets of six users are each initially invited to create their own avatar then transported into an alternate reality.

This takes the form of an exhilarating seven-minute Formula E experience in which visitors drive on a multi-sensory journey right through Jaguar’s racing heritage and then challenges visitors to compete with other drivers and visit various Formula E series’ track locations.

The user is also treated to a Jaguar racing heritage montage fronted by legendary British racing driver Sir Stirling Moss OBE, before meeting the new Panasonic Jaguar Racing Team drivers.

Then the players even feel a rush of wind to their faces as they ‘take off’ down the tracks and are challenged as they make their way through Paris, Hong Kong, Marrakesh and New York and into the mind of a Formula E driver.

The initiative, developed in partnership with global creative agency Imagination and VR production studio REWIND, claims to be a first-of-its-kind, fully immersive virtual reality experience.

As well as the at-event installation (which saw more than 1,000 people take the VR experience in the first two days of the motor show), the experience (which is on display in Paris until 16 October) is also promoted by Jaguar on YouTube,

and on its other digital and social channels.

At the experience’s climax, user drivers get to activate their own #FanBoost to go for the win and then each individual’s results can be shared on their own personal social media channels.

(FanBoost is a concept introduced by the FIA in the Formula E Championship to give the three ‘most popular’ drivers a temporary boost in power in each ePrix: these boosts can be deployed in a five- second window during the second half of the race and viewers/fans can vote to FanBoost their favourite driver in the 12 days prior to, and up to six minutes into each race.

The experience and its digital and social amplifications also encourage consumers to give @JaguarRacing a boost via Fan Boost. RT using #FanBoost + #AdamCarroll or #MitchEvans, or vote at http://fanboost.fiaformulae.com/.

Ready to race, ready to electrify. Retweet using #FanBoost + #MitchEvans or #AdamCarroll to vote for Panasonic @JaguarRacing. pic.twitter.com/sjvOzcBeh3

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) October 9, 2016

As we prepare to electrify the Hong Kong city-centre circuit, here’s how to vote for Panasonic @JaguarRacing drivers to win #FanBoost. pic.twitter.com/aYksGddO4r

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) October 8, 2016

Ross Wheeler, Imagination’s head of automotive, says the VR experience aims to helps communicate the exhilaration of Jaguar Panasonic engineering and design.

‘We needed to create a thrilling way for people to learn about Jaguar Panasonic’s Formula E I-TYPE. Using the best of theatre and VR technology, we’ve told a story in an unforgettable way,’ outlines Wheeler.

‘We can’t sit everyone in the real driver’s seat but, with this totally immersive experience, we’ve come close to providing an authentic high-adrenaline experience.”

Rewind CEO Sol Rogers adds: ‘We’ve used our VR expertise to create a truly unique experience to mark Jaguar’s return to motor racing. Built in Unreal Engine 4, the experience for HTC’s Vive uses a custom-built seat and high-end 4D experience systems to push the level of immersion, whilst the social aspects draw out the competitive nature in all who try it.’

The motor show stand also contains an Innovation Lab which brings Jaguar Land Rover’s most advanced technology to the public as a tactile, engaging experience.

The VR experience was launched at the Paris Auto Show and will then go on tour to other auto shows and Formula E venues including Hong Kong and LA.

Another marketing initiative celebrating Jaguar’s entry into Formula E is its creative musical alliance with Gorillaz guitarist Noodles (see case study).

Panasonic Jaguar drivers Carroll and Evans finished 14th and 16th respectively in the team’s inaugural race on 9 October and the team activated around the race itself at-track, through its dealerships and across its digital and social platforms.

With the pre-race shakedown complete, join us on a tour of the Panasonic @JaguarRacing city-centre pit lane garage. #FormulaE #HongKong pic.twitter.com/vkXDN2d3jJ

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) October 8, 2016

As the team undertake final race day preparations, @DGandyOfficial talks about his history with Jaguar and the future of electric racing. pic.twitter.com/uQ3wD5LmM9

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) October 9, 2016

Comment

We’ve seen so much leading-edge, at event, head-set based virtual reality property owner and brand partner activations in the sponsorship and sports space that we feel the point is approaching when the new technology alone is no longer enough to create a genuinely innovative and cutting-edge piece of activation.

However, this multi-sensory initiative truly is an immersive experience in the fullest sense of the term and is a cut-above most of the simpler, YouTube 360° training pitched based offerings littered across the landscape.

Its entry in Formula E marks the return of Jaguar to racing and the objective of this initiative is to link the brand’s cutting edge technology and its blend of performance and sustainability to its racing heritage.

The FIA’s Formula E series is the first single-seater, all-electric world championship: it is run across 14 races, on 12 city-centre-circuits spread across five continents.

Panasonic Jaguar Racing entered Formula E at the start of Season 3 in October 2016.

Jaguar Land Rover and its key Formula E partners – title sponsor Panasonic and Lear – have allied because of their shared collaborative vision based on new technology, courage, invention, teamwork, learning and winning.

Links

Panasonic Jaguar Racing Team Web:

http://www.jaguar.com/jaguar-racing/i…

Jaguar YouTube:

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

Jaguar Website:

http://www.jaguar.com

Jaguar Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/Jaguar

Jaguar Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Jaguar

Jaguar Instagram: