The joy of Wimbledon at home — MIND

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Product Design Director
Wimbledon X American Express
2021
Gamified Social Experience

Due to limited ticket availability for The Championships 2021, the Wimbledon team wanted to find new and exciting ways to engage fans who couldn't attend the event.
'The Virtual Hill' is an immersive digital experience that allows tennis fans worldwide to participate in the 2021 tournament as part of a virtual crowd for the first time. The experience includes live quizzes and interactions synchronised with real-time action on the court and daily prizes.

Process:
engagement through UX

Our main goal was to ensure that fans felt engaged and excited and kept returning for each tournament day. How do we keep fans coming back? Following gaming best practices, we designed a progressive level-up system where users can unlock increasingly better rewards by interacting with the experience and earning in-game currency.

The rewards included avatar customisation options as well as physical prizes such as signed tennis balls.

Users' chances to win the best rewards increased the more they interacted with the experience, as each interaction delivered WimbleCoins, used to unlock the next reward level.

From concept to launch in 60 days

The team had only two months to design, develop, and launch the virtual hill. It was a collaborative effort, with designers, 3D artists, animators, sound artists, and engineers working tirelessly to bring it to life.

Outcome

In its pilot year, 'The Virtual Hill' amassed significant sign-ups for American Express and organic social impressions and was shortlisted for the Leaders Sports Awards 2022.

Video credit: Solarflare Studio

Agency: Wasserman
3D environment, animation & sound: Solarflare Studio
Creative Director: Conall McAteer
Product Design Director: Yarden Gur
Project Manager: Khalil Kheresh
Producer: Ben Crawford