The campaign was built around the Fan Morphing Station at the BBVA Compass Stadium – home of soccer team Houston Dynamo – where fans can transform themselves into virtual bobblehead dolls. Fans input their email address on the kiosk screen to receive a virtual bobblehead image on their smartphones and upload it to Facebook or Twitter, with 53 percent of social media uploads on game day occurring via a mobile device.

“Although a mobile application was not built into the activation, mobile played an integral part in the user take away and social share,” said James Giglio, CEO of MVP Interactive, Philadelphia.

“Emails were immediately sent to fans with links to post their image directly to their favorite social media sites,” he said. “With the pervasive use of mobile devices, we knew it was important to embed easy clicks to social media.

“We know the use of mobile devices is strong at sporting events, so it was important that we developed a user-friendly link to share fan images through mobile uploads. Our tracking saw a peak in game time uploads so it further supports studies that fans continue to be engaged with their mobile devices at all times.”

Team spirit
BBVA Compass Bank teamed up with MVP Interactive for the campaign.

Fans at the stadium on game day have the opportunity to see themselves as bobblehead dolls outfitted in Dynamo colors and to showcase their team spirit by virtually painting their faces in team colors and sharing the images with friends.

The photos were taken by the kiosk’s embedded camera, with facial recognition software registering fans’ faces. The image would appear on the 55’’ touch screen, at which point fans could choose to change their hairdo, skin tone and jersey to customize their bobblehead doll or select their virtual face paint.

The final result was a free virtual bobblehead or face paint image, with fans able to enter their email address to receive the image and then upload it directly to Facebook or Twitter.

The kiosk is adorned with BBVA Compass logo and branding and the emails sent to fans with included the bank’s logo, Web site and promotional content to enroll in official Dynamo-related banking products like team branded credit or debit cards.

The effort was launched during the second half of April.

In the two weeks following the launch, the campaign produced more than 3,100 impressions and captured close to 300 email addresses. Additionally, BBVA Compass Bank saw a 50 percent increase in credit card applications as a result.

A sporting chance
The Morphing Station will be a fixture at Dynamo home games throughout the remainder of the season.

BBVA Compass offers mobile banking options for its customers via an app and text messaging.

“Sports properties understand the importance of bandwidth to which many have installed DAS Networks – distributed antenna systems – to their arena’s to help support mobile efforts,” Mr. Giglio said.

“As stadiums and arenas continue to scale up to be equipped to handle such high volume, sports marketers and brands have been eager to roll out game time marketing efforts,” he said.

“We’re seeing cooperative efforts from both brand and team to roll out mobile apps that support anything from concession stand orders to ticket sales. Not to mention the increase use of RFID as point of sale opportunities for merchandise through mobile devices.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York