A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a new Toronto company called Brizi is betting that thousands of pictures can be invaluable for sports franchises and their corporate partners.
According to Ticketmaster research cited by Brizi, nearly three-quarters (74%) of attendees at live sporting events take at least one picture, about 92% of which are ultimately shared on social media.
But, Brizi co-founder Anna Hu says this fan-generated content is also “disconnected” from a sports franchise and its sponsors, who have no way to track or monetize it.
Hu believes she and her team have created a solution for eliminating that disconnect with a new product called the “BriziCam” – a robotic in-arena/stadium camera that fans control via their smartphone.
Attendees at an event enter their seat and section number via a dedicated URL (ie: BudweiserCam.com) to instruct one of several cameras located throughout the venue – a 20,000-seat venue will typically house eight cameras – to focus on their location.
Users are subsequently presented with a live feed of themselves on their phone, and have 30 seconds in which they can control camera functions such as panning and zooming before snapping their picture.
Brizi rhymes with “breezy,” its name reflecting its founders’ philosophy of an easy-to-use application that doesn’t require a change in existing consumer behaviour. “This is a dangerous path that a lot of tech companies go down, and is detrimental to getting users,” says Hu. “There is no app to download for our tech – it’s easy Brizi.”
The BriziCam provides sports teams and venues with a white label solution to which the franchise – or a sponsor partner – is able to apply a simple graphic overlay to all fan photos shared from the game. “The franchise or sponsors have instantaneous end-to-end control,” says Hu. “They select the colours, the messaging, upload an overlay image and then they’ve got this fan experience ready to go live.”
During the recent U.S. Open tennis championship, for example, the event’s official timekeeper, Citizen, was among the BriziCam sponsors. All of the photos taken by the camera during Citizen’s one-day sponsorship – many of which were subsequently shared via social media – were framed by the outline of a watch featuring Citizen branding.
According to Hu, attendees snapped and shared nearly 7,500 photos – leading to 650,000 social media impressions – during the U.S. Open. Fans were urged to post the picture to social media with the promise of an ultra-high resolution photo commemorating their attendance at the game.
Uploading provides Brizi and its partners with information such as which demographics engaged with the camera, as well as valuable social media information such as their purchase preferences and any brand pages they may have “liked” or followed.
“We now have so much data about you and are able to reach your hundreds or even thousands of friends or followers. That’s where the magic happens,” said Hu, whose LinkedIn profile bills her as a “digital disruptor.”
Sports sponsorship is a $60 billion business globally, but Hu says it remains largely focused on the same old solutions, such as in-stadium signage and digital banners.
Brizi is two-and-a-half years old, though its current business model has only been in place since October 2015. Prior to that, the company was experimenting with drone-mounted cameras that could be controlled for use in news reporting, live-casting, etc.
Hu says the model had “great traction” in markets like Europe and Africa, and was used for events such as fashion shows and award shows in North America. However, privacy and safety regulations around the use of drones prevented the business from taking off in a significant way.
The turning point came during a business meeting last year. “I had lunch with a guy from the CFL, and I said ‘What if our cameras didn’t fly? Would that be more appealing?’” Hu tells Marketing. “From there that’s how we got started in the sports entertainment space.”
Brizi’s first partnership was with the CFL’s Ottawa Redblacks, who invited fans to use the BriziCam to take pictures during the team’s final home game in November. The cameras were accessed approximately 4,400 times in three hours, with 842 photos captured by fans.
The photos, all of which were labelled with “RNation” – the name the team has given to its fanbase – garnered approximately 407,000 impressions through social media shares.
Since then, Brizi has partnered with the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers during the playoffs, as well as with the New Zealand-based tennis tournament the ASB Classic.
Asked about Brizi’s long-term viability, Hu says she is “in it to win it.” The organization has existing relationships in Australia and New Zealand, and Hu says she is already talking to potential partners in both Europe and Asia. “We’re absolutely going to go global,” she says.
“Some people call us a startup, but I think of us as a real business that is able to execute flawlessly every time for our customers,” she says. “It’s not just a vision for us.”
