Lady Gaga’s drones win only a modest prize, but Intel will survive
Intel was shortlisted for two projects in the Innovative Technology category at the Cannes Lions held from the 19 to 24 June 2017. But it managed to win no more than one bronze lion. Nonetheless, the spectacular display of drones during Lady Gaga’s show at the Super Bowl back in February is still in the minds of the lucky few who witnessed it. Indeed, the tech giant achieved one meager reward at that Festival of Creativity. But, does it matter?
Intel was the first brand to integrate the Grammy Awards
However loud the Cannes lions will roar, their impact won’t ever measure up to that of the Grammys. The partnership between Intel and Lady Gaga started five months before the supreme musical event. At the time, the multinational approached the music icon asking how she would like using Intel’s expertise in her show. A keen Gaga played ball, saying that technology could affect stage performance in really profound ways and take it to another level thanks to some otherworldly imagery… From there, Intel proceeded to become the first brand ever to be incorporated into the prestigious event.
Although it sparked criticism, Gaga-Bowie was a content marketing feat
The Grammys held in February 2016 was the first time the pair teamed up for a professed tribute to David Bowie who had died a month before. At the time, the tech giant turned Lady Gaga into the departed innovative artist through Intel-enabled technologies such as holography, robotics, live video processing, wearables and 3-D motion graphics. The end result was an astounding visual demonstration, although some of David Bowie’s die-hard fans rather considered the six-minute accolade as utter blasphemy. Nevertheless, Lady Gaga is one artist that is as avant-garde as Bowie and the partnership was a perfectly appropriate fit for Intel, Gaga, and the Grammys. Intel was not only able to tap into the huge fan base of both personalities but generated over 10 billion media impressions globally, making of it one prodigious example of content marketing at its best with a rare double celebrity endorsement.
Intel got to simultaneously beat the drum for its new shooting-star drones
Could there have been a better staging for the presentation of Intel’s purpose-built quadcopter drones? For this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, Intel had 300 drones dance in a perfect choreography behind Lady Gaga as she performed. This new type of unmanned aerial vehicles, called Shooting-star that can create over 4 billion colour combinations, did make a sensation at a previous un-televised event, but obviously not in the same magnitude.
Here again, Intel smoothly slithered itself into the six-time Grammy winner’s performance rather than busting in with a barefaced ad. As the artist sang “God Bless America” and “This Land Is Your Land”, the foot-long 8-ounce drones created a backdrop of tricoloured formations in the sky in the shape of the American flag — stars and stripes included. Josh Walden of Intel said the potential for these light show drones is endless and hoped this experience inspires other creatives, artists and innovators to think about how they can incorporate drone technology in new ways that have yet to even be thought of.
h/t: Adweek
