March Madness is upon us and to engage fans wherever they are, including at home, Invesco QQQ ETF, the official ETF of the NCAA, has launched an augmented reality hoops competition with NBA legend Grant Hill.

The experience begins by bringing Grant Hill into your living room as a hologram by tapping an area of your floor via your smartphone. Once Grant has kicked off the challenge, players swipe up from the basketball to the hoop to shoot. Each player has 30 seconds on the clock to make as many baskets as you can with each shot valued at $2,000. All players start with $10,000 and for every shot you hit, your digital dough grows. At the end of 30 seconds, players are presented with the total digital dough they earned and how much that would have been worth if they would have invested their digital dough in Invesco QQQ ETF – an investment product that accesses leading companies on the forefront of automation and technology – 10 years ago. Players can then share the experience with friends and family or teammates or explore game-changing innovations from Invesco.

“Just as the Invesco QQQ ETF gives investors access to the innovation of the Nasdaq 100, Invesco’s approach to March Madness is rooted in innovation. The augmented reality experience of QQQ Hoops is one dimension of Invesco’s efforts to help show March Madness fans the connection between the innovative companies of the Invesco QQQ ETF and the NCAA.” – Emily Pachuta, Chief Marketing and Analytics Officer for the Americas, Invesco.

Users can scan a QR code to shoot hoops with Grant Hill in Web AR.

QQQ Hoops AR is a web-based augmented reality (WebAR) experience which works in the browser on iOS and Android smartphones with no app required to download. The AR experience was created by COFFEE Labs and powered by 8th Wall technology. The experience uses 8th Wall’s proprietary World Tracking augmented reality technology to place the hologram of Grant Hill and the basketball net in the user’s physical world space using a smartphone. Grant Hill was made into a hologram using green screen video technology. COFFEE Labs added lighting estimation and shadows to the green screen video in WebAR to add an additional layer of realism to the experience.

“COFFEE Labs was thrilled to partner with Invesco to deliver this interactive WebAR experience. This browser based Augmented Reality game was the perfect platform to reach fans during March Madness and showcase the innovation of Invesco QQQ ETF. COFFEE will continue to push the limits of what’s possible to connect with consumers in unique ways,” says Al Silvestri, Partner and Chief Creative Officer of COFFEE Labs“.

Invesco QQQ ETF has made the AR experience central to its NCAA campaign which also features full-page takeovers, digital and social ads and jumbotron messaging in-stadium with QR codes to scan to play the AR game. The experience is live now until April 8, 2021.

You can try the experience on a smartphone using this link: https://qqqhoops.com/

Read more about this experience on Auganix.