Colenso’s creative backroom team has led M+AD ed David Gapes through a scaled-down demo of the V Energy promo that saw a very heavy object – a 20m steel container – being levitated by gameplayers on an Auckland wharf earlier in the week. The object of that exercise was to launch V Zero.
Gapes had written about the promo, and bravely commented: “If you believe this, you’ll believe anything.”
While we still can’t get our head fully around the technicals – there was absolutely zero guile in the gimlet eyes of the agency tech team – and the force of their logic. And we saw the power of the demo with our own gimlet eyes!
For the M+AD exercise, the team used its proof-of-concept set-up, including a store-bought state-of-the-art headset, which measures the level of focus in each player as they look into a computer screen.
Those levels translate through algorithms and computer software into a reverse magnetic field under the container. The stronger a competitor’s focus, the higher their side of the container will lift.
Gapes’ own fuzzy focus succeeded in lifting the model a good 2cm off the desk
We did run the idea past a former Auckland University maths professor, who agreed the technology was sound.
“Over the years V have continually challenged us (Colenso) to come up with and execute ideas that are original and challenge perceptions of what can be done in the real world,” says Colenso head of activation & PR Paul Gunn (the tech translator at our demo.
“So to pull off events like this we’ve built a great team who specialise in delivering real world activations that spans from creatives and producers right through to technologists who work together to bring these ideas to life.”
The Colenso team was creative technologist Robbie Boyd, activation producer Scott Coldham, and activation producer Mitch Lovich.
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