AI Sports Advertising with A.N.D.R.E.

The game is nill-nill.

Then suddenly the football pitch-side advertising banners suddenly flash “¡Vamos! ¡Vamos!” alongside the three-stripe Adidas logo as Lionel Messi charges forward with the ball. The Camp Nou stadium, the home of FC Barcelona since 1957, explodes.

Then 19-year-old Raphaël Varane of Real Madrid steals and hurls forward. The banners suddenly flash with the logo of Nivea Men and “¡Robar! ¡Robar!”

Introducing A.N.D.R.E. which stands for Ad Neural Detector of Real Estate by Qualex Consulting Services. It uses Artificial Intelligence to determine in real-time which football pitchside banners are having the highest penetration of viewership. This determines regardless if the eyeballs are in the stands, watching online or via live satellite broadcast.

More than just determining via computer vision which banner real estate is getting the most focus, it can also correlate the players who are getting the most playtime and synchronize the banners to the brands that both sponsor the player and the football club.

Why is this important?

It can be used to quantify the money spent on players for advertising dollars per game, per season. This system can also be used to incentivize players to push harder to take control, score more points during a game. Because it’s the athletes who are living advertisements.

Currently, if one team dominates during a game, advertising bias is cooked in by the placement of ads. However, tight matches allow for equal distribution of advertisers. Or if there are frequent offensive and defensive attacks — this gives a new angle and opportunity for advertisers.

A.N.D.R.E. allows for advertising bidders in real-time to claim pitch banners based on the action happening -

• Attack Advantage — from the angle of the action when there is an offensive drive occurring.
• Whole Field — mid-pitch advertising when a team is having a tug of war, back and forth drives that neither arrives at an attack.
• Winning Advantage — when the game seems to be heavily trending towards the home team or a higher winning percentage club.

The system can detect 18 classes or 18 advertisements per frame per second. Technically the system only needs to detect a maximum of fifty frames per second and infer advertising real estate without sub-second delay. However, it can work with minimal delay on 324,000 frames in a 90-minute football (soccer) match.

A.N.D.R.E. can also mitigate advertising hijacking where fans can sit close to the pitch and throw up a sign when play is in front of them to give free advertising to competing brands.

Using computer vision, it can blur all signs that have competitor logos and/or derogatory statements for those viewers watching online or via satellite broadcasts. Unfortunately, it cannot do anything for those in the stands unless security wants to be called to remind the fan they cannot show other logos.

An extra feature allows the competing logos shown by advertising hijackers to be replaced by those who have paid to sponsor.

Advertising has become incredibly competitive. But more importantly, as the money thrown at sports is increasingly being asked to show pass-through value, there is a need to quantify that money spent is being directly linked to the bottom line.

With the A.N.D.R.E., real-time coupons using memes and hashtags can be generated to link the purchase of products through online retailers watching a real-time event.

Even highlight videos posted on streaming sites such as YouTube and Twitch can be used as an advertising opportunity with linkages to real-time actions and not just generic players.

Maybe the players that own the field are the ones that should be sponsored than just those that drive the touchdowns, the goals, or the blocks. Sports stars that occupy screen time can be compensated just like the scorers.

“There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” — Derek Jeter

A fan watching a game getting a discount on their favorite shoes because a player didn’t score, but is driving the ball hard — means everyone wins.

Even if the score at the end is nill-nill.

See the demo below.