Red Bull Racing’s 360-Degree Consumer Control F1 Camera

Sponsorship and media pioneers Red Bull is astonishing the marketing and partnership world again with this latest staggering video camera collaboration with Norwegian company Making View.

The alliance has fitted custom-developed camera system on top of the energy drink brand’s F1 cars and then hurling it around the track to provide ground-breaking, customer –controlled imagery.

Click here to see the camera and car in action – http://makingview.no/makingview.com/?p=1

The resulting video allows each individual user to pan around the circuit using a computer keyboard or mouse. Viewers can interact with the camera and switch the angle at the touch of a button while playing back recorded footage of the high-speed circuit.

Rather than selecting the best view for the action, this 360-degree camera lets you rotate at will. You can look down at the driver, to his right or left, or swivel the camera to face backwards and see who’s chasing him down. If an overtaking manoeuvre happens you can rotate and track the car going past. And it is awesome when seen in action.

Typical of Red Bull’s innovative approach to using its sponsorships to astonish and to engage consumers in innovative, embedded ways, this initiative sees motorsports coverage begin to keep pace with the amazing technological advances enjoyed by the F1 machines themselves (assuming viewers/users have the necessary high-speed bandwidth).

As Wired Magazine commented: “This has the potential to bring racing action into the 21st century”.

Comment:

Call it branded content, or content marketing, or a PR stunt or even smart sponsorship – however you define it, once again Red Bull is pushing back the engagement boundaries and providing more original and astonishing activation.

360-degree imaging is a bit of a trend at the moment. After all, in the imaging world the 360 photo it has recently moved from a prime feature in panoramic cameras to the world of apps with a slew of new Android and iOS releases.

But neat add-ons as those are, consumers are getting an altogether more dynamic and compelling experience with this new fully controllable and immersive 360-degree video experience.

It’s so good one can’t help but wonder why Felix Baumgartner didn’t have one attached to his helmet when he jumped from the edge of space?

Links:

Red Bull Racing Website
http://www.redbullracing.com

Making View Website
http://makingview.no/makingview.com/