Ad campaign enables anyone to spend 3 minutes as a robot in Italy

San Pellegrino US's Three Minutes in Italy campaign enables fans in North America to take a virtual tour of the European country from the comfort of their home.

Platforms such as Skype and FaceTime have brought video communication across continents into the mainstream, but telepresence technologies are beginning to add an extra immersive element to connecting with remote locations. San Pellegrino US has taken this onboard with its Three Minutes in Italy campaign, which enables fans in North America to take a virtual tour of the European country from the comfort of their home.

Created by ad agency Ogilvy NY and experience design studio Deeplocal, fans could log onto the brand’s Facebook page and join a queue to control a telepresence robot situated in Italy for three minutes at a time. Users were able to view a live feed of the location of the robot through its on board webcam and could determine which direction it travelled in. The robot was also equipped with a tablet, which displayed the face of its controller and enabled them to interact with locals. The campaign aimed to give fans of San Pellegrino a taste of the country where it was founded, strengthening its connection to Italian culture. The video below shows an example of the robot in use:

This isn’t the only example of this technology being used for this purpose – Coca-Cola Israel’s Social Robot also recently enabled homebound teens to have a presence at its annual Coca-Cola Summer Love festival in Beit She’an. Could telepresence robots become a more common sight on our streets?

Spotted by Murray Orange, written by Springwise