NEW YORK - March 13, 2008 – Avenue A | Razorfish, one of the largest interactive services firms in the world, today helped Sheraton Hotels and Resorts (a Starwood brand) tip-off the Sheraton Wave campaign alongside the upcoming national men’s college basketball tournament. The site, www.SheratonWave.com, brings together college sports fans everywhere through the most iconic image of sporting events: the wave, and embodies an innovative crossbreed of user-generated content with digital technologies to provide a truly unique user experience.
The site offers a pioneering, first-ever online version of the wave and features hundreds of linked video clips of college basketball fans across the U.S. doing the wave. In addition to searching for and playing clips of the wave, users are encouraged to upload their own video or use a unique webcam tool to film a wave directly onto the site. Videos can be tagged with a variety of affiliations, including schools, cities, states, props, and so on. The wave then plays the clips perfectly chained together to create an endless surge of hands. A standalone player allows users to embed a custom wave into their blog, MySpace page and/or website. A scoreboard tracking the most active colleges encourages friendly rivalry. In addition, users uploading videos are entered into a sweepstakes, the winner of which will receive two tickets to the 2009 men’s semi-final basketball tournament.
“The Sheraton customer is a ‘social being’ energized by meeting and interacting with others while traveling,” said Jeff Mirman, director, interactive marketing, Sheraton Hotel & Resorts. “This site brings together those people who are passionate about this aspect of their lives and especially about college sports.”
Avenue A | Razorfish worked with Sheraton Hotels to create a full viral effort that will help inspire friendly competition within college fan websites and forums. A full complement of rich-media video banners has also been developed in support of the microsite, including sponsorship of the CBS live streams of college basketball games.
“SheratonWave.com combines social media with digital technologies and is a great example of what can happen when a client engages an agency as a true partner,” said Barbara Ward Thall, vice president & client partner, Avenue A | Razorfish. “Starwood entrusted us with a unique challenge and then enthusiastically supported our efforts to make a big idea even bigger. It was a rare privilege indeed.”
The Sheraton Wave campaign is just the latest in a series of digital experiences developed by the agency on behalf of the Sheraton brand. Late last year, Avenue A | Razorfish created the Sheraton Play (www.sheratonplay.com) campaign and microsite, which allowed multiple users to engage concurrently in digital pillow and splash fights.
The Sheraton Wave campaign will run from March 20 – April 30, 2008.
About Avenue A | Razorfish
Avenue A | Razorfish is one of the largest interactive marketing and technology services agencies in the world. The company helps industry leaders such as Starwood Hotels, Kraft, Ford Motor Company and Carnival Cruise Lines use digital channels to acquire and service customers. Avenue A | Razorfish's full suite of digital offerings includes online advertising, Web site design and development, email and search engine marketing, emerging media strategies, and enterprise portal development. Its award-winning client teams have a great understanding of customer needs and provide solutions through distinct business disciplines, which include: analytics, strategy, technology, media, creative design and user experience. Avenue A | Razorfish has offices in markets across the United States, and global operations in Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.