AT&T Soccer Fan Engagement: Penalty Shot, Juggling & Touch Foosball
AT&T did not want soccer fans to just walk past its booth. It wanted them to play, register, come back, and bring friends. Elation Digital by Brand Engagement Solutions built a connected set of branded games that engaged fans at multiple events and across multiple platforms, from a physical pitch to the phone in a fan’s pocket.
The suite included a Penalty Shot game played with real kicks against a digital wall, a touch version of Penalty Shot for smartphones, a high-visual touch soccer juggling game with multiple levels, and an award-winning custom touch Foosball table. A registration and tracking application tied it all together and captured dwell times and interactions. Here is how each piece worked and why the pieces work better together.
Penalty Shot takes the most dramatic moment in soccer and lets any fan try it. Visitors stepped onto a turf pitch inside a branded Skill Zone and took real shots with a real ball at a digital wall, where an animated goalkeeper defended the net.
The mix of physical and digital is what makes it work. The kick is real, the result appears instantly on a large screen, and fans waiting in line watch every attempt, so each turn doubles as a show for the crowd. You can see an earlier version of this format in our AT&T Penalty Shot case study.
Not every fan can reach the pitch, so we built a touch version of Penalty Shot that runs on a fan’s own smartphone inside AT&T’s bilingual MEXFANS hub. Fans swipe to shoot, aim for bonus targets in the corners of the goal, and earn points as they climb through levels. To advance, a player has to score at least three goals, which keeps the challenge rising without making the first level intimidating.
Instant on-screen reactions, from “GOLAZO!” to “UH…”, give every shot some personality. The mobile version also extends the experience beyond the booth: a fan who is waiting in line, or who never reaches the pitch, can still play, and every game ties back to the same fan account.
Dominadas, the Spanish term for juggling, is the most visually ambitious piece of the suite. A stylized 3D player stands under stadium lights while the fan taps and drags to kick the ball and keep it in the air. Coins add bonus points, and multiple levels each set a new kick target to reach.
Touch controls are the key. Anyone who has used a smartphone can start playing immediately, while the coins, points, and levels give skilled players a reason to keep going and beat their own best run.
Foosball is one of the few games nearly every fan already knows how to play. We rebuilt it as a custom interactive touch table, making a familiar bar-room classic feel brand new. The AT&T logo sits right on the digital playfield under the ball, so the brand stays in view for the entire match.
Familiar rules mean no explanation is needed: fans walk up, understand the game, and compete. At a busy event, where staff time is limited and attention is short, that is a real advantage.
The games get fans to engage. The registration and tracking application makes that engagement measurable. Fans created one account in the MEXFANS hub, choosing Spanish or English, and received a personal QR code to scan in and participate. The same hub gave them one place to find the games, exclusive video content, a scan-and-win prize wall, and a store check-in that pointed them to nearby AT&T locations.
Behind the scenes, the application captured dwell times and interactions. Instead of guessing which activations worked, AT&T could see which experiences held attention, for how long, and how fans moved between them. For brands that want the same measurement layer, our Smart Engagement Platform is built for exactly that job.
Five lessons from this build apply to almost any fan activation:
Our approach to sports experiential marketing follows the same playbook: familiar games, real-world energy, and a data layer that proves what worked.
If you are building a sports activation and want fans to play, register, and come back, we would like to help. Elation Digital designs and builds interactive experiential marketing solutions, from custom games to the tracking that proves they worked. Get in touch to start planning yours.