PITCH-R

TitlePITCH-R
BrandNISSAN
Product/ServiceNISSAN FOOTBALL LAB
Category G01. Tangible Tech
Entrant TBWA\G1 Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation TBWA\G1 Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation 2 DAN PARIS, FRANCE
Production TBWA\G1 Paris, FRANCE
Production 2 DAN PARIS, FRANCE
Production 3 UNIT9 London, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Eric Pierre TBWA\G1 Executive Creative Director
Adam Mandelstam TBWA\G1 Creative Director
Luke Bartley Freelance Creative
Vanya Beloborodov Freelance Creative
Kiminori Suzuki TBWA\G1 Creative
Fabian Braun TBWA\G1 Creative
Darren Rosenberg TBWA\G1 Creative
Ewan Veitch TBWA\G1 President
Philippe Simonet TBWA\DAN President
Tito Favino TBWA\G1 Chief Strategy Officer
Julien Etheredge TBWA\DAN Digital Leader
Piers Bebbington TBWA\G1 Brand Leader
Bruno Toporovschi TBWA\G1 Account Director
Jake Annett TBWA\G1 Account Executive
Kate Lynham Unit9 Creative Director
Sylvie Brandl TBWA\DAN Production Director
Aurelien Durand Nissan Sponsorship & Partnership Manager
Xavier Diquet Nissan Content & Deployment Manager
Nicolas Macé Nissan Sponsorship Section Manager
Martin Jobin Nissan Content & Activation Director

Background

Nissan is a car brand focused on technology. As sponsors of the UEFA Champions League they reach a global audience of fans. With this in mind, we wanted to find a way to bring innovative technology to the beautiful game for the benefit of football-lovers around the world.

Describe the strategy

The problem is, tech and football don’t always mix. How did we get around this? Well, we still mixed technology with football, we just did it in an unexpected way. With this in mind we developed Pitch-R - A super-smart autonomous robot capable of creating a football pitch anywhere, anytime. With a target audience of over 2.65 billion grassroots footballers globally we knew we had to produce a technological innovation that would be relevant to everyone. That’s why no matter who you are or where you are in the world, Pitch-R can draw a football pitch on any surface and enhance your experience of the beautiful game.

Describe the execution

Inspired by Nissan’s “Intelligent Mobility” technologies, Pitch-R was designed in collaboration with Nissan’s own Japanese designers and European engineers. Throughout the 2017-18 UEFA Champions League season we adapted Nissan’s cutting edge technology to be used in a football context. The production process featured a technological team in Yokohama, a management team in Paris, while the final product was developed in London with the user testing taking place on the historic Hackney Marshes. Finally, we launched Pitch-R on the grandest scale of all - at the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final in Kiev - the most watched annual sporting event worldwide with a global unique reach of 380 million viewers.

List the results

This is just the start of a great career. Pitch-R is currently making its way across Europe; painting lines, creating games, and generally getting people talking about Nissan technology and football. It is the first innovation to come out of the Nissan Football Lab - a global digital campaign showcasing the future of Nissan tech through the lens of football. The Nissan football lab will also give birth to further innovations in the future, all with the target of innovating the grassroots game worldwide.