The Opportunity
2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the greatest technological feat of the 20th century—the iconic Apollo 11 Mission inspired by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s famous “Moonshot” speech. This speech would go on to become one of the most quoted and celebrated speeches of all time, and JFK’s “Moonshot” would become synonymous with the idea of challenging the impossible.
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Mission, the JFK Presidential Library and Museum and Digitas wanted to introduce today’s generation to President Kennedy’s bold vision for the space program using livestreaming as a means to share, inform and connect with viewers around the world.
The Experience
The JFK Presidential Library and Digitas created a mobile AR experience reflective of all things Apollo 11 culminating in a simulated launch through the app and a re-creation at the library in Boston: JFK Moonshot. JFK Moonshot was a fully-synchronized augmented reality recreation of Apollo 11 where every moment, maneuver, and milestone unfolded in real time, second-by-second, precisely 50 years later.
To extend the reach of the event, JFK Presidential Library and Digitas planned a livestream of the AR launch extended to Twitch, Facebook and YouTube. The experience would feature a livestream broadcast with leading influencers and newscasters, interviews with historical NASA figures and live countdown to the actual rocket launch 50 years to the minute of Apollo 11’s 9:32am EST launch.
The Partnership
Digitas vetted several partners and selected Bulldog DM to plan, manage, produce and enable the livestream. It was important for Digitas to work with a partner that knew all aspects of a livestream broadcast including the challenges presented on the ground including procuring adequate on-premise bandwidth and navigating the various social media platforms. Moreover, this engagement marked the very first livestream of an AR experience.
Digitas leveraged some of Twitch’s most popular streamers, Dr. Lupo, DazValdez and Seum to provide a “play through” live broadcast of the action—a modern version of Walter Cronkite’s commentary 50 years ago.
The Implementation
Bulldog DM and Digitas worked through a set of livestreaming technical best practices for the broadcast:
- Site survey – the teams reviewed the outdoor waterfront JFK Library location to determine the feasibility of a multi-platform live broadcast relative to the physical AR location markers on-site.
- Bulldog DM created a redundant broadcast transmission strategy that eliminated any single point of failure and ensured that the livestream remained on-air for the entirety of the live broadcast regardless of the waterfront conditions.
- Bulldog DM provisioned a robust and redundant live encoding solution that included state of the art encoding hardware and failover for a high-end broadcast-quality workflow.
- The dedicated streams were tested before the live broadcast and directly published to the JFK Library social media channels on Twitch, Facebook and YouTube.
- Bulldog DM produced the live broadcast with an awarding winning live video production team — enabling a HD livestream consisting of three manned cameras to cover the hosts and event plus, for the first time, two AR camera feeds of the live AR rocket launch seamlessly integrated into one video broadcast workflow.
- The entire experience was monitored for quality-control by Bulldog DM both on-site and at their off-site Network Operations Center.
The Result
The JFK Presidential Library and Museum was able to achieve a significant return on their livestream amplification strategy with Digitas. Key to this strategy was aligning with popular Twitch influencers known for their expertise in space, science, technology and pop culture. Furthermore, live broadcasting across three major social networks helped lift awareness augmented by the influencers being able to field questions in real time from the livestream audience.
Engagement statistics include:
- 110,000+ rocket launches around the world
- 140,000+ downloads of the app
- 8x more social mentions than competitive museums
- 240,000,000+ global brand impressions
- An 11% increase related to JFK inspiring innovation
- 8 Shorty Award wins (Best In Live Events, Best Mobile Campaign, Best in Arts & Culture, Best Nonprofit Organization,Best Cultural Institution, Best Corporate-Community Partnership, Best Use of Augmented Reality, Best Pro Bono Campaign)
- Silver Ciclope Award
- 3 Epica Awards: Gold, silver and bronze
- 24 One Show shortlist nominations
“The JFK Presidential Library and Museum and Digitas presented us with a truly innovative livestreaming concept and we were both intrigued and excited to help them bring the broadcast to life. The combination of the historic significance of the event, along with the followings of the influencers, an outdoor setting and simulcasting to 3 major social platforms represents an incredibly complex and innovative workflow and it was a pleasure and honor to be involved to help share it with the world — live,” commented Bulldog DM CEO, John Petrocelli.