Enable Jaguar Land Rover to maximize and monetize its sponsorship investment in tennis and the Wimbledon tournament.
The ‘Ace Pace’ app: a game which has helped Jaguar Land Rover reach a new audience of over 15,000 people and achieve over £5M in vehicle sales.
The Client
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) needs little introduction — one of the world’s largest, oldest and leading manufactures of sports cars, executive saloons and SUVs. They have had a long association with tennis and have been the very proud official car partner and sponsor of the Championships at Wimbledon since 2015. This partnership sees them provide cars for the players and officials and host ‘pop up’ experiences in the run up and during the tournament itself.
When you’re working with Journey, it’s not about them; it’s about coming to you as the client and asking what’s the problem and how they can fix it. They’re very customer focused.
In the context of their association with Wimbledon, the marketing team at JLR approached Journey with a very specific set of ‘challenge statements’ for us to solve. Firstly, how could they better showcase their connection with the Championships and raise awareness around their progressive innovation agenda and the all-electric i-Pace car?
Secondly, how could they help to shift perception of the Jaguar Land Rover brand and reach a younger demographic through social media channels?
Thirdly, how could they maximize their investment in the tournament through test drives and ultimately car sales? We put our thinking caps on…
Our solution was ‘Ace Pace’ – a fun, engaging and social mobile app-based experience where players challenge each other to see who can deliver the best serve. Leveraging the motion sensors and gyroscope that exist in all smartphones, ‘Ace Pace’ can track, measure and awards points to each player based on the accuracy of their ball toss and the speed and arc of their serve.
Whilst on the face of it, it’s a simple concept, there’s a high degree of complexity built in to the app – both in terms of the mathematics associated with calculating serve speed and accuracy but also the game mechanics themselves, where players are facing off in a seamlessly orchestrated tournament. Speed was of the essence to. The original version was built in a series of agile sprints in just over four weeks: a timeframe that included testing and releasing them to the App Store and Google Play. We felt like we’d played a five setter by the end of it, but the result was worth it.
This year’s Ace Pace is the third version of the game that we’ve created. With each release, we’ve enhanced the features and functionality – elevating the experience and improving the game’s reach and outcomes.
