You Versus

Have you ever wondered if you could take on a pro?

You Versus gave tennis fans the chance to find out.

Housed on-site inside the US Open American Express Fan Experience, You Versus was the first-ever virtual reality experience to blend live action video, CGI, and the ability to fully move around inside a virtual world as you moved in the real world—letting fans play a professional athlete.

Unlike passive VR, You Versus had people up and swinging. They were handed a responsive haptic “racquet,” and once they slipped on the VR headset, they found themselves transported onto the court to actively play Maria Sharapova—enabling them to return her groundstrokes, lobs and even her famous serve.

After playing, people received a video that stitched the VR and real world action together so they could show how they did against a pro.

Implementation

We motion-captured Maria Sharapova and utilized state-of-the art body and facial scanning to create her CG version.

Each player got headphones, the HTC Vive headset and a haptic racquet/controller, and then were immersed into a 360 degree virtual tennis court, where they returned Maria’s lobs, volleys and her famous serve. Over 50 reactive verbal responses from Maria and her coach enhanced the gameplay.

Timeline

We gave tech and trade press a hands-on demo of our beta version in early August 2015. You Versus debuted to the public at the opening of the US Open Championship on August 29, 2015 until September 13.

Placement

We promoted You Versus with a :30 jumbotron spot inside Arthur Ashe Stadium featuring Maria playing herself in VR, a robust social media strategy and outdoor media.

Scale

Three VR bays were stationed in the Fan Experience space, which was visited by over 200,000 fans.

This cutting edge, innovative experience generated buzz, including: AdWeek, ESPN, Forbes, Sports Illustrated, Tech Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. And even a Tweet from Bill Gates to his 24 million followers after he tested the product himself. Ultimately, You Versus generated over 1 billion PR impressions, and led us to more than achieve our fan experience objectives.

We had 1.3 million total on-site engagements (a 39% increase YoY),

842k social engagements (5x the projection) and 86% of prospects came away with a positive opinion of the experience, delivery and purchase intent (survey).