Volvo ad turns audience into joysticks

This weekend a new gaming technology will debut at cinemas across the UK that lets the audience work together to "drive" a car in a manner similar to Sony's EyeToy.

The game is part of an advertising campaign for Volvo to publicise the launch of a new car, and will be shown before the 8:30 p.m. showings of Ratatouille.

There will be 12 cinemas participating, and these will be playing head-to-head, with a score table at the end showing which regions did best. The following branches of Cineworld will be participating in the game: Nottingham, Wandsworth, Bolton, Sheffield, Chesterfield, Brighton, Cardiff, Ipswich, Edinburgh, Stevenage, Birmingham, and West India Quay.

A single camera positioned underneath the big screen is hooked up to a laptop at the back of the theatre. The technology uses motion-sensing to see if the audience is leaning left or right, and moves the car onscreen accordingly. The aim of the game is to guide the car to collect objects and passengers that appear onscreen.

Before the game starts, there will be a short film in which James Dreyfus--who starred in comedy shows The Thin Blue Line and Gimme Gimme Gimme--will walk the audience through how the game works. Dreyfus will also appear periodically during the game to "rouse" gamers to do better or praise them when they are doing well. Then there will be a short "calibration" exercise, which sets the game up for the amount of players in the audience.

David Polinchock, chief experience officer at the Brand Experience Lab, which worked on the new gaming technology for Volvo, thinks that the advert will be a great premovie workout. He said, "It allows you to get rid of all that energy that you don't want when the movie's on. Audience gaming is a new genre, and it creates a very social experience."

Polinchock believes that the potential for this technology is huge. For example, it could be used in the future for voting, turning mobile phones into joysticks, or interactive advertising. If the technology takes off, then the camera could be hardwired into the cinemas, meaning it would have a much faster response time than the wireless connection currently allows. He urges people to think of the possibilities, "For instance, let's say Spider-Man 3 is coming out, and the audience plays a game where they move Spider-Man through the city rather than just watching a trailer."