During 2010 and 2011 Rackfish took upon an endeavour that stretched across several borders, setting up cameras in both the US and Mexico
The Mexican beer brand Pacifico wanted to expand in the US and together with Creature from Seattle and Unit 9 from the UK, they planned a campaign supposed to bring the “flavor” of Mexico to the US.
Four locations were scouted: one overlooking the boardwalk on Venice Beach, California. One on the patio of the world famous hotel Hotel California in Todos Santos, Mexico. Another hotel, the antique hotel Belmar in downtown Mazatlan, and the last location was a surf board factory in Puerto Escondido in southern Mexico.
At each location, a camera was set up in front of a wall. This wall was painted by local artists and all walls depicted a bottle of Pacifico Beer as well as “menu choices”. The idea was to live stream the walls and let visitors click on the mural to move around the website.
We took care of all the logistics for this project, from hiring ADSL connections in Mexico to setting up cameras on all four locations. Troubleshooting internet connections in beach locations where there are few – if any ADSL lines. In Puerto Escondido, we managed to rent part of the only phone line in the area so that we could have Internet delivered to the factory, which was across the street. So we proceded to cabling the connection, burying it under street level in order to secure the connection. Due to the distance from the phone PBX to our location, speeds were dismal at best, but Rackfish’ experienced technicians managed to find a good balance between video image and video performance.
For the cameras, we used Axis P3344-VE vandal proof HD cameras. They are extremely robust and reliable. A fact that we noticed when we took down the camera on the boardwalk on Venice Beach nearly 2 years after the project began. The harsh conditions on a beach, where the salt corrodes al metals were no match for the camera. After two years, the camera was still working perfectly!
Another reason for choosing these cameras was the fact that they can be managed and configured remotely. This made it easy for our technicians to optimize frame rate and image quality, instead of doing that on location, where it is hard to test internet speeds, etc.
The web site itself went on to be nominated for a Cannes Lions Cyber award, where Rackfish was listed as producers. It also went on to win a FWA Site of the day award, and several other awards.
