Heineken Star Player

Heineken Star Player

The UEFA Champions League attracts massive global audiences, and a large share of fans watch matches at home. Heineken’s release references over 150 million TV viewers watching live UCL coverage per match week in 220+ territories. Heineken and AKQA used that context to build Heineken StarPlayer, a dual-screen app designed to let fans interact in real time with the nail-biting action.

With StarPlayer, fans play along live on desktop and mobile by anticipating what will happen in key match moments, in real time. The promise is simple. Turn passive viewing into a competitive layer of predictions, banter and shared tension.

What StarPlayer actually adds to the match

The mechanic is built around micro-moments. Here, “micro-moments” means the short, repeatable windows where a single prediction fits without pulling you away from play. Corners, free kicks, penalties, shots, and short time windows where a fan can commit to a forecast. If you are right, you gain points. If you are wrong, you lose ground. The point is not the points. The point is sustained attention and social comparison. Because each forecast is time-boxed and resolved by the next play, the loop creates tension and keeps fans scanning for the next peak moment.

In sports sponsorship, the hard part is not reach. It is converting 90 minutes of attention into 90 minutes of participation.

In global sports sponsorships, the scarce resource is not exposure, it is credible participation during the live window.

The real question is whether you can turn the second-screen reflex into a ritual that heightens the match instead of competing with it.

Why the dual-screen idea fits the way fans really watch

StarPlayer leans into two truths. First, a lot of fans watch at home rather than in stadiums. Second, many are already using a second device during the match, either to check stats, message friends, or follow commentary. StarPlayer turns that second-screen habit into a structured game loop. It also respects viewer control. You can engage in bursts, choose the moments you want to play, and keep your focus on the match while the phone or laptop becomes your companion layer.

Extractable takeaway: If your audience already second-screens, convert that habit into one-tap decisions tied to predictable peaks, so the companion layer adds tension without stealing attention from the main screen.

What the brand is really buying

Heineken positions StarPlayer as “made to entertain” applied to sport viewing. The business intent is to make the sponsorship feel like an experience, not just a logo. If the brand becomes part of the ritual, it earns recall that is tied to real match emotions, not ad breaks. This kind of activation is worth doing only when it becomes part of the viewing ritual, not an interruption layered on top.

The work later earns major industry recognition. Heineken Star Player is listed as a Cyber Gold Lion (Mobile) at Cannes Lions, credited to AKQA London.

Steal the second-screen prediction loop

  • Design around predictable peaks. Build interactions for moments people already lean forward for.
  • Keep the loop lightweight. A decision in seconds beats anything that competes with the main screen.
  • Make it social by default. Rivalry, banter and comparison are the fuel. Solo play is the backup.
  • Optimise for “stickiness”, not clicks. The win condition is returning to the second screen again and again during the match.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a “dual-screen” experience in sports marketing?

A dual-screen experience is when the main content stays on TV, while a phone or laptop adds a companion layer. The second screen can enable play, prediction, stats, chat, or rewards without interrupting the match.

Why do prediction mechanics work especially well in live sport?

Because sport is already a sequence of uncertain outcomes. Predictions let fans externalise their gut feel, then get instant feedback, which creates tension and repeat engagement.

What is the simplest version of Star Player a brand could copy?

Pick 5 to 10 repeatable match moments. Create one-tap predictions with a short countdown. Score it. Add a friend leaderboard. Keep everything playable in under five seconds.

How do you avoid the second screen distracting from the match?

Design for bursts. Keep interactions tied to natural pauses or peak moments. Use quick taps, not typing. The TV remains the hero.

What metrics matter for a second-screen activation?

Time-in-experience per match, repeat participation across matches, and social play rate. For brand outcomes, track recall and sponsorship attribution uplift, not just installs.

Nike SPARQ: Immersive Digital Training

Nike SPARQ: Immersive Digital Training

When training becomes the differentiator. Nike SPARQ goes digital

Not too long ago, talent determined greatness. Today, talent is a given, but training is what separates the exceptional from the merely promising. So to help athletes everywhere reach their true potential through better training, Nike along with ad agency R/GA New York created an immersive digital experience for the SPARQ program (Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, and Quickness).

Athletes could now follow the same training regimens as professional athletes through detailed, customized video demonstrations delivered via iPods or handheld video players that made it accessible anywhere. The SPARQ website also let athletes set goals, track progress, find Nike SPARQ Trainers across the country, get an official SPARQ rating, and purchase gear.

The smart move: make elite training portable and personal

The experience does two things at once. It brings pro-level drills to anyone with a device, and it makes training feel individualized through customization and video guidance. That combination shifts SPARQ from “program” to “daily habit.”

In sports-performance brands and youth training programs, the winners make instruction portable enough to survive real life.

Why this feels bigger than content

The real question is whether your digital experience builds a habit-forming training loop, or just publishes drills. Because it is not just inspiration. It is infrastructure. Video demonstrations give you the “how,” goal setting and tracking give you the “keep going,” the rating gives you a yardstick, and trainers plus gear connect the digital loop to the real world. Here, the digital loop is the cycle of instruction, goals, tracking, and feedback that pulls you into the next session. Treat training as infrastructure, not content, if you want durable engagement.

Extractable takeaway: Pair instruction with goals, tracking, and feedback loops so progress is visible and practice becomes a habit.

The business intent hiding in plain sight

Build a performance ecosystem that increases commitment over time. The more you train, track, and compare, the more SPARQ becomes the platform you return to. And the more natural gear purchase becomes inside that flow.

Steal the habit loop, not just the videos

  • Ship a loop, not content. Guidance, goals, tracking, and a measurable score.
  • Design for anywhere use. Portability turns intention into repetition.
  • Connect digital motivation to real-world touchpoints. Trainers, ratings, and commerce.

A few fast answers before you act

What does SPARQ stand for?

Speed, Power, Agility, Reaction, and Quickness.

What did Nike and R/GA New York build?

An immersive digital experience for SPARQ that delivered customized training video demonstrations and a supporting website for goals, tracking, trainers, ratings, and gear.

How did athletes access the training content?

Through detailed video demonstrations delivered via iPods or handheld video players, making the training accessible anywhere.

Why did this feel bigger than training videos?

Because it combined instruction with goal setting, tracking, a rating, and connections to trainers and gear, creating a repeatable training loop.

What made the SPARQ website useful beyond videos?

It let athletes set goals, track progress, find SPARQ trainers, get an official SPARQ rating, and purchase gear.

What is the simplest principle to copy from SPARQ?

Pair guidance with goals and feedback so people can see progress and have a reason to return.

Dali Museum iPhone App

Dali Museum iPhone App

To build awareness for “The Dali Museum’s” fantastical new building, ad agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners developed a customized picture-editing app that created dreamy surrealist overlays over photos.

With zero budget, they turned to Hipstamatic to help bring the smartphone app to life. The team at Hipstamatic liked the idea so much that they waived their fees and pledged to donate the proceeds from the app to the museum. Plus, their 1.2 million loyal followers provided the critical mass needed to reach the general public.

In the first couple days after the release, the Hipstamatic site crashed due to extremely high traffic. The blogosphere bubbled with over 19,000 mentions and in the first month alone 50,000 people purchased the app.

Why the “zero budget” part mattered

Most museum awareness efforts struggle with the same constraint. Great content, limited reach. This solved it by building the campaign inside an existing distribution engine. Here, a distribution engine means a platform with a large active audience and a built-in habit of sharing. Because Hipstamatic already had the audience, the use case, and the sharing behavior, the museum could turn a niche cultural launch into something that traveled through everyday iPhone photography. The business intent was simple: make the new building culturally visible far beyond the museum’s owned audience.

Extractable takeaway: When budgets are thin, do not start by buying reach. Start by embedding the idea in a tool, platform, or habit that already has distribution.

For museums, destinations, and other cultural institutions, the scalable challenge is usually not creating content but accessing a behavior people already repeat.

The real question is not how to advertise the building, but how to turn public participation into distribution.

The smarter move is to build the awareness mechanic inside a behavior people already want to perform and share.

What to borrow if you are marketing a place or institution

  • Turn the subject into a tool. A museum became a creator utility, not a brochure.
  • Partner for distribution, not just production. Hipstamatic brought the audience and the habit.
  • Make sharing the default output. Every edited photo is a piece of media that carries the idea forward.

A few fast answers before you act

What was the Dali Museum iPhone app?

A customized picture-editing app that applied surrealist, dream-like overlays to users’ photos to build awareness for The Dali Museum’s new building.

Who created it?

Goodby Silverstein & Partners developed the app concept and execution.

How did they launch it with zero budget?

They partnered with Hipstamatic, which waived fees and pledged to donate app proceeds to the museum.

What did Hipstamatic contribute beyond technology?

Distribution. Their 1.2 million followers provided the critical mass to reach beyond the museum’s natural audience.

What were the early results?

Hipstamatic’s site crashed from high traffic, the campaign generated over 19,000 mentions, and 50,000 people purchased the app in the first month.