In 2016, BBH Singapore and Nike created the digital wonder, Unlimited Stadium, a you vs you footprint-shaped running court that gives you an avatar rival (of you at your recent best) to run against.
Now Heckler has joined the Nike & BBH Singapore team to create their second digital wonder, the Nike Hyper Court in the Philippines, in partnership with Google.
The Nike Hyper Court aims to improve the skills of young Filipino players, by bringing digital content to physical basketball courts. The connected basketball courts help basketballers train using their smartphones, data-free.
There are five hyper courts so far, spread across five Barangays (districts) of Manila. Each is firstly inspiring – a visual spectacular featuring a huge portrait of a player by Dallas artist, Arturo Torres, known for comic-book style drawings of rappers and NBA stars. The five paintings are of basketball stars, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kobe Bryant and Russell Westbrook.
Then each is helpful. The artworks come to life in the project’s on-court digital platform that offers players access to Nike content and 75 unique training drills created by the famous basketball players themselves.
To help create and edit the hours of original content needed for Nike Hyper Court‘s training drills, BBH Singapore tapped Heckler to bridge the digital and physical by recreating Torres’ illustrations using a combination of animation and live action footage.
Heckler animation director, Shaun Leong-Williams, led the animation team, working with BBH Singapore. He believes that using Google’s technology to help change the game is a worthy project to get behind.
“The Philippines has one of the most tenacious grass roots basketball communities in the world, no question. To be a part of a campaign so engaged in supporting and developing this movement is amazing,” Leong-Williams commented.
“It feels great to know we’re helping provide a coaching tool not often before accessible to so many young athletes-in-the-making; something that could hopefully affect their lives in a really positive way. Ball is life!”
Heckler executive producer, Will Alexander, added, “In Manila, basketball is one of the fastest growing sports yet the city has the worst Internet speeds to be found in the developing nation. BBH Singapore, Nike and Google have come up with a wonderfully interactive project that can now provide millions of young basketball players with access to some of the best training drills available at no data cost.”
Credits:
Agency: BBH Singapore
Executive Creative Director: Joakim Borgström
Creative Technology Lead: Dillah Zakbah
Creative Director: Aste Gutierrez
Copywriter: Kara Bautista
Art Directors: Sudhir Pasumarty, Denise Tee, Grace Wong, Joel Sow & Lee Jing Lin
Content Production: Black Sheep Studios
Head of Production: Jonathan Gerard
Producer: Samantha Dalton
Illustrations: Arturo Torres
Post Production: Heckler
Animation Director: Shaun Leong Williams
Executive Producer: Will Alexander
Senior Producer: Charu Menon
Audio: Neon Sound
