Cavaliers Partnership Brings ARound to Teams in Three Professional Sports Leagues

NEW YORK and CLEVELAND, April 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — ARound, a next-generation fan engagement platform designed to enhance gameday fun with live, real-world augmented reality (AR) experiences – part of the Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) Marketing Cloud – has partnered with its first NBA team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, to bring a shared AR experience called “Cavs ARcade” to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, kicking off during the 2023 NBA Playoffs. In Cavs ARcade, fans will be able to digitally interact with the basketball court, fellow fans in the FieldHouse, and witness real-time effects on the Cavs giant video screen through mass multi-user gaming, 3D player personalities, real-time effects and more.

 “We’re seeing a growing appetite from sports teams to keep existing fans engaged and capture new, younger audiences, who are recognizing the ease in which ARound naturally integrates and complements the action of the game. So far, fans have responded very positively to these interactive experiences, with engagement times exceeding our expectations,” said ARound Founder and CEO Josh Beatty. “As the first team in the NBA to introduce shared AR, the Cavs are opening up an entirely new playing field for their 19,000+ fans at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to feel closer to the game, the players, and the energy of the venue, especially in this notable return of the Cavs to the Playoffs.”

ARound first launched with the MLB’s Minnesota Twins in August 2022 and the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams in December 2022. The Cavaliers experience will include new, custom features and effects to enhance the gameday experience, such as:

• AR Chain-Shot Contest: Fans can embody the spirit of the Cavs Junkyard Chain tradition by showcasing their grit and determination in the thrilling AR Chain-shot basketball contest, with nightly points leaders awarded Cavs jerseys, autographed merchandise, and more as they compete with fellow fans in this interactive, skill-based challenge.
• Wine and Gold ‘Landslide’ Game: CAVS ARcade introduces a stadium-wide multiplayer Wine and Gold ‘Landslide’ game, allowing Cavs fans to rally behind their team colors in a high-energy blend of friendly competition and team spirit.
• Larger-than-Life Mascots and Effects: CAVS ARcade brings beloved mascots Sir CC and Moondog to life in stunning AR on fans’ phones and stadium videoboards, alongside captivating visual effects that transform the game atmosphere into an unforgettable, interactive experience.
• Extended Through Playoffs: The CAVS ARcade experience will persist throughout the Cleveland Cavaliers playoff journey both during home games as well as away game watch parties, ensuring fans can enjoy these groundbreaking AR experiences and heightened engagement for the entire season.

“From the play on the court, to the energy in the FieldHouse and across Cleveland, everything is amplified in the NBA Playoffs,” said Cleveland Cavaliers Vice President of Digital, Brandon Jirousek. “We knew we had to take our fan experience to another level as well, and we couldn’t be more excited to team up with ARound to help us do that with CAVS ARcade. Innovation is at the core of who we are and this is the latest example of how we strive to explore new ways to engage our fanbase and enhance their interactions with the team.”

Cavs ARcade is powered by the ARound Stadium app on iOS and Android. Journalists interested in covering the launch can access the press kit here.

About ARound
ARound is a first-of-its-kind stadium-level shared augmented reality platform and is part of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, a proprietary suite of SaaS solutions built for the modern marketer. ARound keeps audiences engaged by capturing their attention through immersive, interactive and shared experiences with fellow fans across the venue. Where other AR products offer isolating, singular experiences, ARound’s massive multi-user AR – which uses 3D spatial computing to localize content – redefines what it means to be part of a connected fan experience. It was the winner of Stagwell’s annual innovation competition which invests in new product ideas proposed by the network’s 13,000+ employees. ARound and the Stagwell Marketing Cloud are a part of Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW), the challenger network build to transform marketing.

About Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship in 2016 while also taking the Eastern Conference crown in 2007, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. The team plays at, and also operates, the transformed Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse are part of Rock Entertainment Group. The Group also includes the Cleveland Monsters of the AHL, the Cleveland Charge of the NBA G League, Cavs Legion of the NBA 2K League, Legion Lair Lit by TCP home of Cavs Legion in Cleveland, and Cleveland Clinic Courts – the Cavaliers’ training and development center in Independence, Ohio. The Cavaliers are regularly recognized for their extensive community support and engagement programs and contributions, workplace diversity and inclusion leadership, and an on-going economic impact that now registers in the billions of dollars locally. Dan Gilbert is Chairman of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Gilbert and his family of companies have now invested over $2.0 billion in Cleveland. Gilbert is also Founder and Chairman of Rocket Mortgage, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and Founder and Chairman of Rock Ventures LLC, the umbrella entity for his portfolio of business and real estate investments. Nic Barlage is the Cavaliers, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and Rock Entertainment Group CEO, and the Cavaliers team is led by President of Basketball Operations Koby Altman, General Manager Mike Gansey and Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff. The Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse provide fans the best experience in the NBA with its extensive and stunning array of amenities and technology and signature, electrifying game presentation.

Media Contacts
For ARound
Sarah Arvizo
pr@stagwellglobal.com

For Cleveland Cavaliers
Zack Yohman
Zyohman@cavs.com

Stagwell’s Annual Competition Acts as Incubator for Tech-Focused Marketing Startups with $1M in Funding to Start

NEW YORK and LONDON, April 11, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Stagwell (NASDAQ: STGW) Marketing Cloud has announced the winner of its 2022 Innovation Competition, a program designed to unleash employee innovation and fund technology that solves the modern marketer’s pain points. SmartAssets is an AI-powered SaaS platform that uses AI to extract creative components from ads. It then uses performance data from those ads to guide and support the creative process by reporting, forecasting, and optimizing ads for effectiveness. With AI-powered asset categorization, performance analytics, and instant creative adjustments, brands can better optimize production timelines and overall media performance.

“We were inspired once again by the visionary ideas that were presented in this year’s internal ‘Shark Tank,’ where the competition was fiercer than ever,” said Stagwell Chairman and CEO Mark Penn. “The potential and capabilities of SmartAssets perfectly align with the needs of modern marketers – bringing data-driven decision making to the creative process – and we’re excited to leverage the Stagwell ecosystem to perfect the platform, bring  it to market and let it go to work.”

SmartAssets was developed by a team from multilingual content and media consultancy Locaria, part of Stagwell’s Brand Performance Network: Chief Operating Officer Lindsay Hong, Data Scientist Eric Walzthöny, and Innovation Lead Vitaly Boitelet. The platform has three core capabilities:

• AI-powered asset management: SmartAssets reads the full content of a brand’s creative library and categorizes its attributes. It ensures assets meet industry and brand standards.
• Performance analytics: By connecting with a brand’s advertising platforms, SmartAssets provides performance reporting data not only to the creatives, but to media teams.
• Instant creative adjustments: After identifying opportunities, SmartAssets lets users quickly act on them by adjusting creative within the platform instantaneously.

“Global brands know that great creative drives performance just as much as a smart media strategy, and are looking for greater understanding and control of their increasingly complex creative asset portfolio. They want to be sure that the assets they produce not only meet quality and branding guidelines but will also land with the intended audience and drive results,” said Lindsay Hong, COO, Locaria. “By leveraging AI and the existing media infrastructure of the Brand Performance Network, SmartAssets will derive insights at scale to inform the creative process and expedite media strategy activation, allowing brands and agencies to unite their creative and media teams around one goal.”

Stagwell Marketing Cloud’s Innovation Competition provides funds and expertise for Stagwell’s 13,000+ employees to develop transformational ideas for technology-driven marketing solutions. The brief is simple: create a concept for a client-facing product at the intersection of technology, marketing, and business transformation.

“Our annual innovation competition, which we colloquially refer to as ‘Shark Tank,’ taps into the network’s global, cross-functional talent and deep understanding of the modern marketer,” said Stagwell Marketing Cloud Chief Marketing Officer Elspeth Rollert. “We pair that industry knowledge with the vast technical resources we have at Stagwell to build SaaS solutions that solve some of the industry’s biggest pain points.”

Past winners of the Stagwell Marketing Cloud Innovation Competition have developed into successful products, including:

• Harris Brand Platform (2018 Winner), an industry-leading brand management software tool that collects critical brand and marketing data on brand competitors and consumers, to help marketers segment, target, measure and optimize campaign effectiveness.
• PRophet (2019 Winner), the only generative and predictive A.I-driven PR tool that helps professionals draft releases and social content in minutes. PRophet was recently named the winner of the Innovation SABRE Awards North America 2023 in the PR Software and Services category.
• ARound (2020 Winner), a first-of-its-kind fan engagement platform that delivers stadium-level augmented reality experiences, in use by the MLB, NFL, and launching soon in the NBA.
• WonderCave (2021 Winner), a peer-to-peer texting solution helping to grow brands and build communities with 1:1 text conversations at scale. WonderCave was crowned the 2022 Campaign Tech Award Winner for Best Texting Platform.

About Stagwell Marketing Cloud

Stagwell Marketing Cloud (SMC) is a suite of data-driven SaaS solutions built for the modern in-house marketer. Born out of Stagwell’s network of award-winning marketing agencies, SMC’s technology empowers marketers to drive business impact by giving them intuitive tools equipped with proprietary, actionable data. SMC’s portfolio of solutions powers strategic customer research, communications, and media activation for brands worldwide by leveraging technology such as generative artificial intelligence, shared augmented reality, and more. Get your head in the cloud at www.stagwellmarketingcloud.com.

About Stagwell

Stagwell is the challenger holding company built to transform marketing. We deliver scaled creative performance for the world’s most ambitious brands, connecting culture-moving creativity with leading-edge technology to harmonize the art and science of marketing. Led by entrepreneurs, our 13,000+ specialists in 34+ countries are unified under a single purpose: to drive effectiveness and improve business results for their clients. Join us at www.stagwellglobal.com.

Media Contact
Sarah Arvizo
pr@stagwellglobal.com