Roku and Best Buy teamed up to create a pop-up city filled with friendly monsters in vibrant shades of purple, using a popular projector.
When and how did this event take place?
The immersive experience, called Roku City, was presented to festival-goers on March 11 and 12 at SXSW. Visitors were able to explore various areas of the city while enormous robots walked through the streets (via projection, of course).
Photo: Adweek
According to Julian Mintz, Co-Director of US Brand Sales for Roku, «Both companies are completely in love with entertainment and the consumer. We really don’t consider working with anyone else to bring all of this fantastic entertainment content to life.»
Arriving in town for Roku and Best Buy
The ambitious location in downtown Austin featured a variety of scenes where guests could immerse themselves; such as a rooftop restaurant with booths that could be reserved through OpenTable, and a beauty salon where customers could receive flower crowns and face jewels.
Photo: BusinessWire
Additionally, Best Buy’s home theater experience was a big hit; which consisted of a replica living room with multiple screens. The experience included the full trailer of their original comedy series Slip; starring Zoe Lister-Jones, which the platform premiered at the Cannes Lions Festival in 2017.
The event was made possible through the partnership of Roku and Best Buy. According to Mintz; providing the best content to users is the company’s goal, and the ability to program original content specifically for their needs has been a really effective strategy.
Photo: MySA
SXSW gave the company the opportunity to address the issue on a much larger scale than previous events; giving them the chance to visually compete with other streamers like Amazon Prime and Paramount.
«We felt that with the combination of music, television, and culture at SXSW, there really was no better place for us to bring our brand to life»
Julian Mintz
