Pocket Patrol
Details
Advertiser
- Samsung, a South Korean multinational electronics company
Objective / insight
- Australia is known as a top beach destination, however, every year thousands of people get caught in rip currents and drown
- Thus, rip currents become the biggest killer on Australian beaches, making more deaths than those from shark attacks, floods and cyclones combined
- Sadly, 69% of Australians cannot identify rip currents
- Samsung decided to team up with Surf Life Saving Australia to develop Pocket Patrol – a first of its kind app that displays exact positions of live beach dangers
Implemented strategy
- Pocket Patrol is an innovative smartphone App that’s designed to help Australians locate the position of rip currents using AR, along with other hazards like submerged rocks and shallow sandbanks, that on-duty surf lifesavers have identified at selected patrolled beaches
- Pocket Patrol empowers beachgoers to be identify dangers for themselves and change their own unsafe swimming behaviours, which saving lifesavers’ valuable time and enabling them to stay focused on monitoring the beach
Technology implemented
- The team combined GPS, compass and gyroscope technology and developed a 360-degree virtual reality (VR) experience to demonstrate what it felt and looked like to be caught in a rip
- Lifesavers use Pocket Patrol’s unique AR algorithm to input real time data of rip currents, stingers, shallow sandbanks, sudden drop offs and submerged rocks
- This is then instantly communicated to every person on the beach equipped with smartphones
Results
- 3600 people downloaded Pocket Patrol and identified beach dangers during a month-long program
- The App has been overed by 144 tech websites, blogs, and both local and international news stations, helping it to reach a total audience of more than 20 million
