Tasked with the challenge to make football more exciting through the Heineken brand, we locked ourselves in a room for 6 months and refused to come out until will cracked it. I can confirm I’m writing this from ‘the outside’.

My creative director and I set out crafting the user experience and visual look and feel of the interface. This type of live response game had never been done before, and especially not on a mobile phone.

Heineken StarPlayer was a first in social media multi-platform gaming as it transformed TV watching into a social interactive experience for football fans. The game taps into the competitive banter of the fans by creating a live, competitive, social TV game experience that can be played from home, the pub or even in the stadium itself.

Fans watched the football on TV while playing StarPlayer in real-time on either desktop or mobile. To score points players anticipate events unfolding on the pitch live and make decisions on what will play out over the next few seconds. Will that free kick go in? Will that shot be saved? Will there be a goal in the next 30 seconds?

It was a beast of a project, made with blood sweat and tears and worth every drop for what we achieved, regardless of awards and recognition.

Client: Heineken

Agency: AKQA London

Role: Senior Art Director