JORDI NEVES is chief digital officer of the Volvo Ocean Race. He joined the race in '10 and oversees its marketing, communications and technology departments. Neves dubbed the Volvo Ocean Race -- a 10-leg sailing race that lasts for nine months, with stops in 12 cities -- the "toughest test of a team in professional sport." The athletes have identical equipment and sometimes spend four weeks on the water at a time as they make their way around the globe in a competition that offers no prize. Neves spoke with SBD Global about Volvo Ocean Race's digital approach, onboard reporters who chronicle each team's adventure and how coverage of the race is changing.
On Volvo Ocean Race's broadcast approach ...
Jordi Neves: In our case -- we're a race that is consumed almost 24-7 for nine months -- the best way to consume or to follow the race is on the digital space. ... One of the things that is quite clear to us is that even though you can package it to be posted or to be served by a platform of any kind -- whether it be social media or OTT or TV or digital TV -- it has to surprise, as well, and has to trigger a little bit of a conversation.
On how the race is covered ...
Neves: It's all being packaged from Alicante, Spain, where we have the headquarters. We have a race control, but this is also where we have our editorial team, our TV team and even our technology team. In Alicante is where all of this content is landing. It's all landing via satellite. ... What we have is a group of people -- right now about 100 people -- just going through the content and obviously packaging the content to the different platforms and also listening to the audience and seeing exactly what works.
On how the racers use social media ...
Neves: For the first time, we are allowing them to post directly to social media, one way -- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and also Chinese platforms. We are allowing them also to post and actually share how they feel and how it is going -- not necessarily just about the sailing or the competition, but also just how they're doing. This has helped us big time to drive part of the conversation and obviously to create characters.
On the impact of social media ...
Neves: One of the things that we've seen very often in this space with social media is that you have to go beyond just showing an amazing piece of content. You have to provoke a conversation. ... Whenever we get that content, we post it to different platforms in the best experience possible -- whether it's VR, 360, you name it. You always try to interact with the audience. It's not about a broadcast anymore. It's about interaction and the conversation and leading that conversation and doing some sort of engagement, and then obviously that engagement is capturing all the audiences.
On the race's onboard reporters ...
Neves: The OBRs are actually reporters. They're as neutral as possible. They have their share of cleaning and cooking like the others, but they cannot really interfere. They cannot help or support a team in any potential way. ... The OBR is basically there to tell the story of the race. He is really the one running interviews. Also, the OBR is the one that is editing on board. In those conditions, as you can imagine, editing is not easy. You know, managing the seven, six cameras we have on board, multiple microphones, 360 cameras, drones as well -- that's a lot of assets that the OBR has to manage.
On the influence of virtual reality ...
Neves: It's being used mainly as a way to give you short experiences onboard. We see VR, but you're very quickly in the future evolving into something else that I think will definitely change the way we consume content. It's augmented reality. ... We believe as soon as we can jump into augmented reality, then that's when you can have a completely different world and you can have a different experience and then we can somehow overlay real or live video with data, for example. We say data, we talk about everything -- it can be speed of the boat, it can also be data like biometrics -- you know, what's the heart rate of this particular crew member or how many hours have you slept?
On how race coverage adapts ...
Neves: We listen to our audience and really pay very close attention to when content works and when content doesn't work. In the last two legs, for example, in the last two or three months, we have learned already. We have seen definitely that the length of video really matters, depending on the platform where you are -- whether you're on Facebook, Twitter or other platforms. ... We have also seen what content really works. For example, we have discovered people love drones. They love the new perspective the drones can give you in the middle of the ocean.
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