The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
Michelob ULTRA's Dreamcaster lets a blind fan call the NBA — 13 One Show Golds
A haptic, sound-based system translated live NBA action into touch and audio, letting a blind sportscaster call a playoff game on TV.
Michelob ULTRA · AB InBev
What it had to solve
As the NBA's official beer, Michelob ULTRA wanted its line 'It's Only Worth It If You Enjoy It' to feel culturally relevant — but over 250 million blind or visually impaired people worldwide cannot enjoy basketball at all. FCB New York took that exclusion as the brief.
How it works
Michelob ULTRA, the official beer of the NBA, had a platform line — 'It's Only Worth It If You Enjoy It' — but one fact exposed a gap in it: over 250 million people worldwide cannot enjoy basketball simply because they are blind or visually impaired. FCB New York took that gap as the brief, not as a corporate social-responsibility add-on, and set out to build technology that would let blind fans actually follow a live game.
The team built proprietary software using generative AI, haptics and spatial sound design. During a live NBA game the system processes millions of data points — ball movement, player positions, momentum — and translates them in real time into touch and audio that a visually impaired fan can feel and follow. To prove it, they partnered with Cameron Black, a blind sports journalist; on April 21, 2023 he became the first blind sportscaster to call and commentate an NBA game live on TV, wearing the technology at Madison Square Garden.
The broadcast reached 10.4 million viewers — the second-highest rating of any program in its market that day — with 21,000 fans in the arena. Within days of going live, organic search volume for Michelob ULTRA rose 55% and social conversation rose 44%. Dreamcaster won 13 Gold Pencils at The One Show 2024, the most of any entry that year, plus ADC Annual recognition, and the technology was later rolled out to NBA arenas.
Why it lands
- It turned a real exclusion — 250M+ blind people who can't watch basketball — into the creative problem, so the idea had genuine stakes.
- The tech was the campaign: proprietary AI, haptics and spatial sound made the invisible act of watching into something a blind person could feel.
- Proof came through a historic broadcast — the first blind commentator on live NBA TV — which made accessibility a headline, not a footnote.
- It made the brand line true: enjoyment was actually made available to everyone, which is why the industry gave it 13 Gold Pencils.
What it did
The broadcast drew 10.4 million viewers — the second-highest TV rating in its market that day — alongside 21,000 fans at Madison Square Garden. Organic search for Michelob ULTRA jumped 55% and social conversation rose 44% within days; Dreamcaster went on to win 13 One Show 2024 Gold Pencils and ADC recognition.
What you can take
Accessibility can be the product, not a side gesture: when the fix is engineered as real technology that changes who can enjoy the thing, it becomes the campaign, the story and the awards.
Since then
Michelob ULTRA took the Dreamcaster technology to every NBA arena so blind and visually impaired fans could experience games live, and the campaign went on to be named the world's most awarded campaign by AdForum's Business Creative Report. It also collected Cannes Lions, Clio awards and an Emmy Sports for DaHouse's audio engineering, and a 'Dreamcaster' app was developed with Cameron Black. FCB New York, its agency, topped The One Show 2024 Global Creative Rankings as the world's top agency that year.
Sources
- Dreamcaster
- Dreamcaster
- FCB New York dominates One Show 2024 with 14 Gold Pencils
- FCB NY Wins 14 Golds in The One Show 2024
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