Fans of basketball recently enjoyed this year’s festivities at the NBA Draft. While the insanity of the selections made pulled the bulk of the sports headlines, the tech brought to the day by Victor Oladipo received everyone’s attention. The 2nd overall pick, selected by the Orlando Magic, donned Google Glass to record and share the events of his NBA Draft Day experience, a campaign setup by Carrot Creative.
We reached out to our friend Don Povia, Director of Sports and Entertainment for Carrot Creative, to find out how Victor + Glass came to be and what lies ahead for their efforts to connect brands and celebrities with emerging technology.
SportTechie: Can you offer some insight on how you came into the opportunity with Oladipo?
Don Povia: We came up with the idea after a Blogs with Balls event with NFLPA and GQ at Google HQ. We mentioned how great it would be to see an NFL player walk onstage with a pair. When we saw the buzz Ziggy Ansah got for wearing a pair of 3D glasses that night, it became a mission to blow that away at the NBA Draft.
We had a pipeline to some players, thanks to Thuzio (who was also involved with the aforementioned event). Their team made an intro for us to Team Oladipo. We chose Victor after narrowing it to about three guys, primarily because of his character, star-power and willingness to embrace the technology.
His team at I AM Sports and Entertainment worked with us quite a bit to make it happen and should be credited with taking a chance on a bold idea and encouraging their client to at least consider the opportunity. Many agencies who have a guy like that would be happy to play it safe.
SportTechie: How did the conversation turn to Google Glass? What were the goals behind getting them on Oladipo for the NBA Draft?
Don Povia: We are as much an idea shop as we are a development one. We were intent of taking a big, disruptive idea and a compelling player and literally creating a conversation that otherwise wouldn’t exist. When we pitched Victor’s team the idea, we noted that he would no doubt get sports and hoops media as a high draft pick, but this would open him up to whole new genres of coverage including tech, business, marketing and culture. In essence, we literally thought to create news and buzz.
SportTechie: Did Google play any role at all, or did you just drop the check to get ’em? (Fairly certain you have to file some form of paperwork for review upon intent to purchase but I may be wrong.) If so, what was their reaction?
Don Povia: We had floated the idea to them at one point, but the issue was them not being able to get a hold of the Glass for us. We didn’t push, and rather sought a media partner that we knew had a pair and solve our only major obstacle.
We let very few people know about the operation. We could have offered it to a client partner, but, in the end, we didn’t want to take the focus off of Victor. We didn’t want it to be about look “what Client X did” or “look what Google did.” This was the biggest night of his life and we didn’t want to take that away from him.
I called the Google contact we had pitched only after the NBA tweeted the photo of Victor wearing the glass on Draft night. We were going to give them a heads-up, but that Tweet expedited the conversation.
However, from what I’ve read, a lot of people think it was a marketing stunt by Google, if only because the background was never explained: how did this come about and why (and how) Victor? I think they made out alright on the deal.
SportTechie: Did Victor provide any feedback on the experience? Did you hear from the NBA on the experience? What kind of response/reaction did Carrot Creative note during and following?
Don Povia: Everything we have heard from Victor and his team has been positive. We have not heard from the NBA.
Carrot’s response has been great, but more importantly we did what we had set out to do. Last week, last I checked (and not including social mentions), Victor + Glass had over 112 million impressions and counting.
SportTechie: Will Carrot Creative be working with others on similar tech-driven efforts? Is this something Carrot visualizes as a specific focus of their service (helping celebs with tech, assisting brands in connecting via tech)?
Don Povia: A recurring theme I hear from players and celebrities that we work with is that they have an extraordinary amount of Twitter followers but no idea what to do with them or how to leverage them to get paid. People like Victor and I AM see the big picture and the value that media and digital exposure can play in connecting those dots.
The problem, it is easy to get lost in the Twittersphere or on a Facebook Timeline because everyone is doing it and your message gets lost. You need to be different and disruptive.
That’s how we can help.
We have a few follow-ups to this in the pipeline, but I don’t want to jump the gun just yet.
Victor’s day and his experience with Google Glass was rather entertaining, and like the technology itself, we’re just starting to identify and experiment with applications. We’ll be keeping tabs of Don and his efforts to move this forward for Carrot, and can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
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About Carrot Creative: Carrot creates digital brand assets for the social web. A preferred partner to Facebook, Tumblr and Heroku, Carrot specializes in optimizing technology to facilitate creative brand narratives that monetize engagement. Working with Carrot means immersing your brand in passion, determination and every (mega) bit of swagger you’d expect from an agency in Brooklyn. The Shorty Award’s named Carrot Best Social Media Agency this year. Check them out here.
CARROT CREATIVE BLOG/PICS ON OLADIPO:
Verge Video – Victor Oladipo with Glass on Draft Day:
CARROT CREATIVE: