/Sobe_Staring_Contest
Sobe's Try Everything campaign was about trying different things. Their website featured several different experiences that followed this principle. To me, this was the biggest one.
In the "Staring Contest", Sobe's model K.a.t.e. U.p.t.o.n. invited visitors to play against her on a staring contest. Targeting a young male audience, the objective of the game was to stare into the model's eyes without deviating your gaze into other parts of the screen.
On the technology side, this started as a big challenge: we wanted to create a game that tracked the visitor's eyes (using a webcam) to detect whether they were staring at the model. We started the project now know whether it was going to be possible, and if so, how effective it would be.
It all worked out in the end, however. First, the final solution used a third-party face detection library to detect the user's face in their webcam feed at 30 frames per second. From there, it created a black-and-white mask of their eyes, measuring the amount of dark along a vertical axis in each eye. Using calibration settings detected previously by clever positioning of buttons on the screen - users had to click button on the top and bottom of the screen, thus mapping the detection mechanism to their light conditions and eye features - we ended up with remarkably accurate values for the gaze's vertical axis.
The solution wasn't perfect, as very dark light conditions and accessories such as glasses could impact the accuracy of the detection. Sometimes, users would also fail to realize having their eyes covered by hats or hair was detrimental to the experience. Still, the result worked surprisingly well, all things considered.
As a bonus/surprise feature for webcam users, cutscenes throughout the experience would show their own video feed mapped into the "challenger laptop" used in the staring contest. This was something that never failed to catch visitors off-guard, and, from my knowledge, one of the first times this was done in Flash (in our case, with the mapping of the webcam feed to coordinates pre-defined for every frame of the video). This technique became pretty popular in the months that followed.
For visitors without a webcam, a mouse version of the game was also available. It was equally fun to play.
This was probably one of the most successful online experiences I've ever created in terms of engagement metrics and online publicity generated.
Date
2011
Agency
Client
PepsiCo
Brand
Sobe
Type
Web
Platform
Adobe Flash
Programming Language
ActionScript 3
Role
Lead Developer
Programming Libraries
Original URL
http://sobe.com/#/tryeverything/staring (dead; try web archive)
Media
Mentions
15 Times K.a.t.e. U.p.t.o.n. Broke The Internet
“Unlike the rules of a typical staring contest, competitors were under the scrutiny of face detection software to determine the eye alignment of the user.”
(The Richest)
Can you beat K.a.t.e. U.p.t.o.n. in a staring contest? (dead; try web archive)
(MoeJackson)
Additional Credits
Creative Director
Dave Snyder
Designer
Leigh Whipday
Designer
Project Management
Jason Glassman
Video Direction
Will Russell
Video Editing
Akash Sheladia
Video Editing
Bryant Jow
Video Editing
Ralph Mastromonaco
Copywriting
Anna Edwards
Tech Director
Eric Decker