Masters of Movement

Establishing Visa as more than just a credit card

The Visa network enabled the seamless movement of money across the world, just like the best football players move on the pitch.

With all eyes on Qatar for the first FIFA World Cup in the Middle East, Visa wanted to use its sponsorship of the tournament to demonstrate that the brand is much more than just a credit card.

Visa’s global campaign around the tournament was ‘For Fans Everywhere’, and the brief was to create an innovative, accessible experience for the FIFA Fan Festival in Doha that enabled participation for all.

Football, art and technology

Visa Masters of Movement was built around a new technology that transformed football moves on the pitch into digital art that could be instantly minted as NFTs.

The first step was to capture the move, with tracking technology that recorded every action on the pitch, including player movement, ball position, passes, skill moves and goals. The tracking data was then fed into an artwork algorithm, which produced flowing real-time visualisations of the move as it unfolded. The goal, or piece of skill was exported as a dynamic digital work of art, ready to be minted as an NFT.

NFT auction

In the build-up to the tournament, iconic moves from five legendary players – Michael Owen, Tim Cahill, Jared Borgetti, Carli Lloyd and Maxi Rodriguez – were transformed into works of art, minted as NFTs, and auctioned on Crypto.com, with all proceeds going to the charity Street Child United.

FIFA Fan Festival

In Doha, everyone got the opportunity to be an artist as they stepped into the ‘Visa Masters of Movement’ arena. For four minutes, the pitch was their canvas as they represented their nation in front of packed crowds in Qatar. Using the tracking technology, all movement was tracked in real-time and displayed on the LED surface that made up our arena.

The key moment of each game – either a goal or a skill move – was transformed into digital art, minted as an NFT for each player, and dropped into their Crypto.com wallet. A unique, personalised souvenir of their experience, which they could share, keep or sell – which they did, in their thousands.

Campaign Experience Awards:
Digital Experience
The Game Changer
Highly commended – Global Brand Activation
Highly commended – Brand Experience B2C – Technology

Cynopsis Sports Marketing Awards:
Honourable mention – Best Fan Engagement Tool

Shorty Awards:
Data Visualisation

Campaign Tech Awards:
Best Use of Experiential Tech
Best Use of Creative Personalisation
Grand Prix

Design Week Awards:
Digital Installations

Bima Awards:
Services and Utilities
Use of Data

Adweek Experiential Awards:
Best International Experiential Activation

For the audience

In Qatar, fans themselves were the stars of the show, getting to play with their friends and represent their country in front of packed crowds at the World Cup.

For the brand

Visa positioned itself at the forefront of innovation by creating a bespoke, data-driven experience on the world’s biggest stage. This also drove behaviour change, as 12,000 people signed up and minted an NFT, participating in the digital economy thanks to Visa.