Dreamcaster used in-game basketball data to break the boundaries of accessibility and live sports.

Blind fans struggle to fully enjoy live sports games — especially basketball games — because they’re difficult to follow. So Michelob ULTRA created an immersive technology that translates billions of data points during live games into an easy-to-follow sound- and touch-based language. We launched this soon-to-be-universally-available technology with Cameron Black, a blind sportswriter, empowering him to become the first blind person to commentate a live NBA game on TV.

With data at the heart of our creativity, we’re making the joy of sports accessible to all.

In a sign of social progress, the world of sports is beginning to talk more about accessibility. But this progress seems to apply mostly to accessibility for athletes. Accessibility for fans doesn’t get as much attention.

So as the brand that believes watching AND playing sports is only worth it if you enjoy it, Michelob ULTRA wants to ensure that the joy of sports is accessible to every fan too.

In addition to developing a technology and campaign that champions accessibility for blind and visually impaired fans, we ensured that our creative assets themselves were accessible to blind and visually impaired fans.

Each campaign element has been reviewed by the American Foundation for the Blind, and made accessible for blind fans through audio descriptions. This includes all campaign deliverables: social ads, campaign videos, and mail assets.

The Situation

Michelob ULTRA believes you should be able to be physically active AND enjoy a low-calorie beer afterward.

Our brand platform, “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It,” has brought this belief to life in groundbreaking and culturally relevant ways over the last few years, addressing issues such as burnout, fans being shut out of games during COVID lockdowns, and more. Our relevance in sports has helped us grow from the #5 domestic beer to #1 in the U.S.

But with billions of marketing dollars spent each year, competition never ends in the beer category. You need to consistently strengthen your cultural relevance.

The Objective

So, to continue growing our market share, we set out to address another pressing, hyper-relevant issue in sports culture: accessibility.

The Brief

Since most people focus on the accessibility of playing, we championed the under-discussed accessibility of enjoying sports as a fan.

Cameron Black was born blind. But it didn’t stop him from having big dreams of becoming a sports broadcaster.

On April 21, 2023, Michelob ULTRA made his dream a reality. We worked with Cameron over the course of a year to develop a groundbreaking, multisensorial technology that translated the billions of data points in a basketball game into an immersive language he could easily understand through spatial sound and haptic touch. With the help of basketball data inputs and generative A.I., Cameron felt every gameplay moment and movement, informing his commentary as he became the first blind person to commentate a live NBA game on TV.

Our partnership with Cameron during the NBA Playoffs was the start of a larger commitment to accessibility.

Soon, Michelob ULTRA will make this technology available to fans in every NBA arena, with a mobile app that takes the same approach to translating data.

The NBA brings joy to billions. Yet this joy isn’t equally accessible to all. So, as a brand that believes “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It,” Michelob ULTRA expanded the cultural conversation about accessibility to include the accessibility of enjoying live sports.

Problem: 284 million blind or visually impaired sports fans worldwide struggle to enjoy live games. They can listen to commentary, but anyone who loves basketball knows the joy of the game goes beyond what you can hear.

Insight: The joy of being a basketball fan comes from truly feeling the game.

Strategy: Translate the action of a basketball game into a language that blind and visually impaired fans can feel, not just hear.

Data Gathering and Interpretation: The action of a live basketball game is easily operationalized through real-time data. So we used that data as an input into our immersive-feeling experience for visually impaired fans.

To most sports fans, an NBA game is filled with a few key stats: points, rebounds, steals, etc. But the truth is that every NBA game consists of billions of data points.

Every NBA game consists of over one thousand “plays”; a “play” can range anywhere from a shot to a rebound to a pass. In partnership with Sportradar, the NBA’s official statistics provider, we translated each play of the game into billions of data points that Cameron Black could feel through a combination of haptics, generative braille, and sound. Cameron felt the sensation of each play 60 seconds ahead of the broadcast, giving him time to develop his live commentary.

By putting over a billion basketball statistics at Cameron’s literal fingertips, we created a sense of multidimensional immersiveness that changed his life and forever changed basketball for billions of blind and visually impaired fans around the world.

Dreamcaster quickly became Michelob ULTRA’s next cultural juggernaut.

Cameron’s historic data-driven broadcast notched the second-highest TV ratings of any program in its market that day, immediately captivating 10.4 million viewers.

And his data-driven commentary echoed throughout the most iconic arena in the world: Madison Square Garden. 21,000 fans and passersby outside witnessed sports history being made.

But the impact for Michelob ULTRA goes beyond a local gameday broadcast activation.

Within days of Dreamcaster going live, organic search volume for Michelob ULTRA jumped 55% and social conversation about Michelob ULTRA increased by 44%.

And within 2 weeks of Dreamcaster going live, our unit sales grew +19%, our sales per shopping trip grew +15%, our dollar sales grew 3%, our frequency of purchase grew 4%, and our household penetration grew 1%.