The pitchside hoardings at major football stadiums are often just used to communicate brand messages, a one-way broadcast channel - even though, regularly viewed by over 100m people at a time, they’re one of the world’s biggest media properties.

In a world tech first, we turned Old Trafford’s pitchside hoardings into a virtual front row for Manchester United vs Liverpool on March 16th. Fans all over the world could be seen, live, supporting their team at the pitchside, via Google+ Hangout.

We recruited superfans across the globe via a social campaign on Google+, promoted with a series of :90, :60 and :20 films and online advertising. Once we had our fans, we also created a film telling their story, and what it meant to be involved in Front Row.

The project reached a huge audience, with over 100 million fans watching the fans appear on the pitchside hoardings during Manchester vs Liverpool on March 16th.

A huge amount of buzz was created, with #MUFrontRow the top trending topic on Google worldwide, and over 350 press and blog articles written on what was happening.

Manchester United saw a 250% increase in the growth rate of their Google+ page, making it fastest growing page on the platform.