A 3D Keanu Reeves pops off Sphere in new Xbox campaign

As advertisers push themselves to think of unique campaigns at The Sphere, one visual effects company is making content that pops off the screen.

Xbox launched a campaign at the massive, high-resolution, spherical LED screen on Thursday by showing 3D versions of some of its biggest games created by digital studio BCN Visuals. The new advertising on the Sphere shows just how much planning and thought goes into custom advertising on the world’s most unique billboard.

“Most of us, when we are walking on the street, we’re looking at our phones,” BCN Visuals CEO Eric Sas said. “Unless you put something crazy out there, I will not pay attention to it. So we make our advertisements shareable by design. We try to do something that would push people to share it on social media, and we try to come up with an idea that would get our own attention.”

BCN Visuals is a digital studio founded in Barcelona with headquarters in New York. The firm got its start in visual effects for the film industry but changed strategies about four years ago when they noticed more static billboards switched out for LED panels, Sas said.

Ad designers have a larger, more exciting challenge in making creative content for the Sphere compared to the typical billboard or flat LED screen. BCN said it made its Sphere campaign by recreating a digital version of the Sphere to work on. The team also replicated the surrounding buildings to give a complete look and producers would test their work by viewing it in a virtual reality headset.

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For BCN Visuals’ 3D style, they have to consider the most common points of view from which someone would see the ad. Other angles may not appear to pop off the screen as deeply but still give the appearance of an alternative image, Sas said.

The campaign went live Oct. 19 and runs twice an hour for a week, the company said. It features pictures of the gaming system and video game scenes like a sports car racing on a track and actor Keanu Reeves for his role in the game Cyberpunk 2077.

“That was one of the most challenging parts of the project,” Sas said. “We needed to make it as real as possible but also still keep the video game look. It’s a gray area, because sometimes you make it too photorealistic and sometimes it’s too cartoonish.”

The studio is no stranger to Vegas and other major markets. An ad for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation began running at the Harmon Corner screens on Oct. 9, along with Los Angeles, New York and 13 international locations. Sas said his team is also behind much of Formula One’s Las Vegas Grand Prix advertising.

McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.