Unsilence The Crowd.
Sela, Newcastle United's shirt sponsor, made haptic shirts that let deaf fans feel the noise of St James' Park, and handed its shirt slot to the charity RNID for the launch match.
- Brand
- Sela
- Agency
- VML / PRISM Sport + Entertainment
- Market
- United Kingdom
- Region
- Global
- Year
- 2024
The challenge
So much of a match at St James' Park is its sound, and deaf fans and fans with hearing loss miss it. RNID research found 71% of deaf people and people with hearing loss it surveyed believed technology could improve the matchday.
The idea
With wearable-tech firm CuteCircuit, Sela and PRISM Sport + Entertainment fitted replica shirts with sensors that turn crowd noise picked up by microphones into vibrations in real time. The shirts were first worn at the Premier League game against Tottenham Hotspur on 13 April 2024 by deaf supporters and by all 11 mascots, who came from the Deaf community, while the team played with RNID on the front of their shirts. A film followed two lifelong deaf fans, David and Ryan, and Sela committed to offering the shirts at every future Newcastle home game.
Results
- The first time a hearing-loss charity appeared on the front of a Premier League shirt, according to Creative Salon
Case study source: Creative Salon Source ↗
