Ideas We Love: Unsilence the Crowd ⚽️🔈

Issue Number 16: Newcastle United, Sela and RNID partner to create a more inclusive experience for Football fans

Hi there. How are you?

This week we’re writing about something a little bit different. By and large, a lot of what we cover could be described as examples of ‘commercial creativity’. Case studies of companies or people using communication in a creative way to drive a commercial result, either indirectly (via activity designed to ‘build the brand’) or more directly, through an incentive or reduced friction in the consumer journey, perhaps.

The idea we’re going to share with you this week doesn’t necessarily satisfy that definition, at least not quite as neatly. It’s a case study of a group of companies who rather than trying to sell something to new customers, are trying to create value for an existing section of a brand’s customer base, a section with a very specific set of needs.

The idea: Unsilence the Crowd

Unsilence the Crowd is an idea resulting from a partnership between Newcastle United Football Club, their main sponsor Sela and the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). Together they launched the ‘Sound Shirt’ - a tech enabled football shirt which would allow fans with hearing challenges to feel the atmosphere at a game at St. James Park.

Microphones placed around the stadium capture the sound of the football match as it takes place. Through a series of baton passes this sound is transmitted to the shirts where a group of modules embedded in the fabric then translate the data into vibration. In doing so, they provide the wearer with a ‘tactile, sensory experience’ - getting them closer to the game and the team they love.

Sela have committed to ensuring that these shirts are available for all future home games at Newcastle. To mark the launch of the ‘haptic shirt’ at Newcastle’s game at home to Tottenham on the 13th April, Sela also donated their shirt sponsorship to RNID to help raise awareness of a condition which affects 1 in 5 adults in the UK.

Why we love this idea

#1 Gives back to fans 🧣

It’s easy to be incredibly cynical about the highest levels of professional football, given the sums of money that are now involved. As weekly salaries and transfer fees go up, it’s inevitably the fan who pays. Here though, we should park cynicism at the door. This idea is one with a genuine power to solve a real challenge for some of the Newcastle’s fanbase and one which has the potential to make football and football stadia a more inclusive place.

This is especially important given the way Newcastle pride themselves on the noise and passion on display at their home ground and by their players too. See below how the club involved local lad, turned left-back Dan Burn in the initiative as a way of further amplifying the campaign and the message.

#2 Technology used in service of solving a genuine problem 💪

One of the criticisms of ‘web 2.0’ was that ‘some of the best minds of (a) generation were thinking about how to get people to click ads’. And whilst our mortgage lenders are largely happy that people do click on ads, we agree that all too often the technology available to advertisers can sometimes be pointed in the wrong direction. The iPhone Vuvuzela springing to mind as a case in point. Here, we have a great example of technology being pointed at a very specific problem, and creating genuine value in the process.

#3 Creates a new media opportunity 🤓

We love it when people either create a new media channel or use an existing one in a new way. Long time readers of this newsletter will also know that we’re also suckers for ideas which manifest themselves in ‘acts’ not just ads.

Football shirts have long been used as a vehicle to transmit messages - to advertise allegiance to a particular brand (by those wearing) or to carry the messaging of a sponsor.

The humble football shirt in this instance has been transformed into a transmitter of another sort. Connecting a group of previously disenfranchised people to their environment and those around them, creating a more equitable situation in the process. And whilst this is an initiative designed to help people with very specific needs you could see how something like this could spread beyond it’s original target audiences and appeal to all fans as a ‘value added’ benefit.

What we’d love to have done with it

In the majority of cases, we get the opportunity in this section of the newsletter to think about how we might stretch the idea in question out into new channels or spaces in media. In the case of this idea, that doesn’t feel quite right. So, instead - where else might you take this technology??

Haptic technology is already used in gaming and within spaced like ‘4D’ cinema… but which other companies or categories might this or an adjacent expression be interesting for?

#1 From Newcastle to the Premier League (and beyond) ⚽️

Clearly, it would be brilliant if Newcastle went to the FA or the Premier League made the case for this technology to be made available in more football grounds up and down the country. It’d be good for fans and good for the RNID. It’d also be good for ‘brand’ Newcastle to lead the charge on this sort of initiative (we’ll save discussion on sports-washing for another day)

#2 From Football to ….? 🥊

Where else might this technology be applied? In all sports there is the inclusion angle, but there are some sports where this sort of haptic technology could legitimately improve and enhance the experience of viewing for all fans. What about the next time Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury get in the ring? Could a haptic shirt help boxing fans get closer the exchange of blows in the ring as their favourite fighters go toe to toe, for example?

#3 Wearables for ‘surround sound’ at home 📺

Haptic technology is already being used in gaming, but further opportunity might exist around other forms of home entertainment. Brands like SONOS or Bose or Samsung could explore as a means of augmenting and extending their existing technology related to entertainment in the living room such as TVs and Soundbars. Haptic shirts (or similar) could bring a new dimension to the latest blockbuster where sound design and sound effects are a central part of the experience.

If you liked this, you’ll love…..

There are some great examples of work which operate in a similar space to this initiative: using technology as a means of creating inclusion, or by the way they augment an experience for people…. here are some of our favourite reference points

Mouth Pad by Augmental

An enhanced ‘Pad’ placed in the mouth allows those with spinal injuries to interact with digital technologies like never before. The technology uses the unrivalled dexterity of the human tongue to interact with the world around them. A big winner at Cannes 2023 for Wunderman Thompson (now VML).

‘Ultimate Gaming Helmet’ by Fridge Raiders

Slightly less lofty than some of the other examples here, but the Sound Shirt really reminded us of this piece of work by Saatchi and Saatchi for snack food brand Fridge Raiders…. Also interesting as a ‘proto’ example of the influencer content which is now such a prevalent part of media consumption… you can see the grammar of the ‘haul’ genre emerging in this video.

‘Light Up Wrist bands’ - Various

Coldplay might have been the first live act to do this sort of thing at scale (at least from the point of view of a westerner), but since then everyone from Taylor Swift to K-POP acts and the NBA have used light up bracelets worn by the audience to add a new dimension to their live shows and events.

‘Ability Signs’ by Decathlon

Representation matters. This idea leans into that notion and makes a simple but powerful commitment to try and diversify and expand the representation of disability in the communication we encouter every day.

Until next time

If this kind of thing is your thing, we both write regularly on other stuff too. Tom’s blog can be found here and Matt can be found building out “The A to Z of Media Planning” here.

As always - we’d love to know what you think!

Until next time.

Cheerio

Tom & Matt