Will VR be a slam dunk for NBA and Mountain Dew?

Mountain Dew will serve as the presenting sponsor of this year’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and as such, the brand plans to bring Virtual Reality to the Toronto during NBA All-Star 2016.

Here’s how Mountain Dew is modernizing the game by bringing in never-before-seen, culturally-relevant programs for game go-ers:

Court Vision: An Interactive Virtual Reality Art Experience

During All-Star Weekend, Mountain Dew and PepsiCo Creator will use Tilt Brush, Google’s virtual reality application, which lets users paint in three-dimensional space through VR and will use it to showcase emerging artists such as Noah Thorne, Bryan Tiege, Kyle Bangles who will create basketball-themed 3D artwork. These will be color sketches and doodles created in the virtual context.

The experience will also give fans the opportunity to create their own “hoops-themed” 3D art. This is a special preview as the Tilt Brush will first be available to consumers in April of this year. Fans who are at the game will also be able to demo Tilt Brush and create artwork.

Greg Lyons, senior vice president of marketing, Mountain Dew says:

“The Mountain Dew brand is all about finding and delivering awesome, one-of-a-kind experiences to DEW Nation,” said The NBA partnership has been a natural fit for us, and we’re pumped to help deliver an immersive All-Star experience to hoops fans — one that symbolizes how the game starts on the court, but lives everywhere.”

Pregaming With Dew Warm Up

Fans can vote to choose their favorite East Conference and West Conference team warm-up songs, ahead of the game, and will get played live while NBA players warm-up for the 2016 NBA All-Star Game.

The options to choose from are:

• “679” by Fetty Wap
• “Focus” by Ariana Grande
• “Cake By The Ocean” by DNCE
• “WTF” by Missy Elliott

They are building excitement before the game even starts and developing ways to identify their most loyal fans by allowing them to choose warm-up songs.

In addition to the VR, the brand continues to embracing art as a whole by branding several high traffic areas around Union Station in Toronto. This art installation will feature various athletes get hyped up for the game both on and off the court.

Together DEW and the NBA are putting out Twitter playing cards. On All-Star Sunday, Mountain Dew will create a series of All-Star cards for both athletes and fans in the spirit of old school trading cards. with stats that speak to the player’s or fan’s off the court lifestyle.

To build off the new NBA TV commercial, DEW is giving fans the opportunity to text one-to-one with DEW NBA All-Star Russell Westbrook and get lifestyle tips from the man himself.

Mountain Dew + NBA | Tilt Brush | Mountain Dew Warm Up

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Originally published at www.psfk.com on February 12, 2016.