In 2019, 5G was all telecom companies could talk about. But few people understood what it was. So rather than just talking about the superiority of Verizon 5G, we set out to own this once-in-a-generation technological breakthrough by showcasing it in a relevant and meaningful way. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is one of America’s longest-standing and most beloved traditions. We enhanced this nostalgic experience and gave significance to 5G, creating a highly immersive, personalized, real-time activation that put people in the center of the action and allowed them to parade like they’d never paraded before. With a YouTube livestream and real-time content on Twitter, we gave audiences 360º views, celebrity holograms, a 5G portal, and augmented reality balloons, making watching this year’s parade at home even better than being there.

Implementation - Throughout a three-hour YouTube livestream of the parade, we demonstrated the power of 5G by adding to the parade experience with 360º camera views and augmented reality surprises. We encouraged people tuning in to participate in building real-time AR balloons. They could engage through polls on Twitter: we asked them to design colors, accessories, and flares of exclusive parade balloons. After voting, they were able to see their balloon creations in AR, in real time, during the livestream.

• Placement - YouTube livestream, real-time content on Twitter.

• Scale - The world’s most beloved parade on one of the world’s largest video platforms.

• Brand relevance - As Verizon continues the transition from phone company to technology company, it needs to create opportunities to showcase the power of 5G in meaningful ways.

• Touch points - Twitter, YouTube

• Materials, style elements, design choices - Twelve 360º cameras allowed viewers to see every inch of the parade. Using volumetric capture, we built celebrity holograms that appeared throughout the livestream. We also built five AR balloon renders with customizable elements tailored to our Twitter polls so they could be created in real time. We extended our brand assets by creating a 3D, balloonified version of the brand font.

• Methods and process - We worked with 5G Labs, creative technologists, and NBC production to build an interactive environment within YouTube livestream for the parade. A real-time social war room crowdsourced interactions and communicated with production, camera crews, and creative technologists to place large data (AR balloons and holograms) directly into the livestream in real time.

• Timeline - Morning of Thanksgiving 2019, three-hour YouTube livestream.

10 million viewers tuned in on YouTube. On social media, we had #1 share of voice, increasing social mentions by 35% YOY, with 85%