Begun as an authentic American diner in London in 1971, Hard Rock International today owns restaurants, hotels, casinos, and live venues throughout the world, as well as an unparalleled collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia. Hard Rock wanted to reinforce its authentic brand and role as custodian to rock 'n' roll history by sharing its collection of memorabilia with fans. Working with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Vertigo and design and advertising agency Duncan/Channon, Hard Rock used Microsoft Silverlight™ 2 to create a unique Web site that serves as a shrine to all things rock. Visitors use intuitive zoom technology to navigate the collection, investigate the stories behind each piece and share their discoveries with friends. Using Microsoft products and technologies, Vertigo built a content management system and infrastructure for the site in just 30 days.
Situation
In rock 'n' roll religion, Hard Rock is a place of worship. Since its inception as an American diner in London in 1971, Hard Rock International has displayed relics of rock 'n' roll lore and music culture for the veneration of millions of fans. The company's more than 146 restaurants and venues, located around the world, feature genuine rock artifacts—everything from the red Fender Lead II guitar that Eric Clapton hung above his reserved table in the original Hard Rock to the handwritten lyrics of a song that Axl Rose penned for Guns N' Roses' breakthrough album Appetite for Destruction.
To emphasize the authenticity of the company's brand and to differentiate it from mass-market theme restaurants and hotel chains, Hard Rock hired design and advertising agency Duncan/Channon. Part of the new brand campaign involved a Web site featuring Hard Rock's memorabilia collection, the largest and most valuable music memorabilia collection in the world.
"At more than 70,000 pieces, our collection has been described as the Smithsonian of rock 'n' roll," says Sean Dee, Chief Marketing Officer at Hard Rock International. "But of course, this memorabilia is extremely valuable and must be handled with extreme care, so we wanted to find a more practical way to bring the collection to a broader audience around the world."
Duncan/Channon worked with the online services group and a cross-functional team of experts at Hard Rock to build a memorabilia Web site that would let fans view artifacts and read the story behind each one. The initial plans involved an HTML-based Web site with basic search capabilities and some Flash components. Each archive item would have its own page, and visitors would be able to zoom in on each item.
Solution
While the team worked on the creative aspects of the new site, Duncan/Channon's development collaborator and Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Vertigo suggested a new approach using Microsoft Silverlight™ 2, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering next-generation Web experiences. "As soon as we received the beta code for Silverlight 2 and explored the Deep Zoom capabilities, we understood that this technology would radically change what was possible for the memorabilia site," says Scott Stanfield, CEO of Vertigo.
To convince colleagues at Hard Rock and Duncan/Channon, Stanfield created a presentation of 1,500 family photos using Silverlight 2 and Deep Zoom, a capability that allows users to explore collections of super-high-resolution images. The demonstration assuaged any initial skepticism about Silverlight 2.
"Once we saw Deep Zoom in action, there was no longer a debate about which technology we would use," explains Michael Lemme, Creative Director at Duncan/Channon. "Deep Zoom doesn't just approximate the real-life experience people have at Hard Rock, it goes even further so that fans can get closer and interact with pieces in ways they couldn't in person."
From Deep Zoom to Deep Purple
The Hard Rock Memorabilia site (http://memorabilia.hardrock.com) presents visitors with a mosaic image of all the pieces in the collection—altogether an amazing 2 billion pixels in size at launch, and growing all the time.
Visitors to the site can zoom in and out by using the scroll wheel on the mouse, pan the image by clicking and dragging, or quickly target a specific item by clicking it. When the visitor selects an item, historical details appear in a transparent frame, along with audio and video; links to external Web sites; and an option to share information about that item through e-mail or on a blog. To the left of the images, visitors can select filtered views of the online collection according to featured artists, type of artifact, decade, musical genre, and location. Once a visitor selects a view, the site rearranges the images in a quick animated sequence.
Benefits
The Hard Rock Memorabilia site helps Hard Rock International promote its unique collection of rock 'n' roll icons and differentiate itself from mass-market venues. "Hard Rock's Memorabilia site reinforces that our brand stands for that personal, authentic connection fans have with rock 'n' roll music and its heroes," says Dee.
Raw, Emotive Experience
Microsoft Silverlight 2 and the Deep Zoom technology helped Hard Rock, Duncan/Channon, and Vertigo capture the tangible spirit of rock 'n' roll through an online experience. "Rock 'n' roll is about authenticity, doing something different, and expressing yourself without inhibition. Deep Zoom brings those qualities to the memorabilia site and lets people interact with these objects in a way that is both unique and natural," says Lemme. "Deep Zoom adds another dimension beyond horizontal and vertical scrolling; now, viewers can seamlessly zoom in—extremely close—to an object or group of objects."
While most Hard Rock memorabilia is encased in glass and displayed in locations around the world, the memorabilia site lets fans interact with rare pieces and inspect details, such as handwritten lyrics and letters.
"Microsoft Silverlight 2 revolutionizes what is possible for a site like this. It is a huge advance in terms of what we can create for our clients and their customers," says Stanfield. "Visitors to the Hard Rock Memorabilia site can easily inspect the grain of leather on a jacket or the individual wire wraps on the E string of a guitar. You can look inside Buddy Holly's glasses and read the inscription of the manufacturer."
Familiar, Cross-Platform Development
Working with technology still in development, the Vertigo team built the Hard Rock Memorabilia site in just 30 days, thanks to the familiar development languages and mechanisms supported in Silverlight 2. In addition, the development team did not worry about which browser visitors used because Silverlight 2 supports all major browsers, as well as the Apple Macintosh platform.
Vertigo also took advantage of Microsoft server products and technologies to handle the tremendous technical challenges for the site. "At the launch, the site comprised 55 gigabits of RAW-format images, streaming videos, and 3.5 gigabits of other content—all available in a browser that runs at 30 frames per second as the viewer pans around an image with 2 billion pixels," says Stanfield. "That's a lot of requests back to the server. Microsoft technologies ensure the system would not only perform as quickly as possible, but scale as the memorabilia collection grows to encompass all 70,000 pieces."
Stronger Brand Affinity
The Hard Rock Memorabilia site raises the profile of Hard Rock International as the custodian of rock history—and fosters the discussion and sharing of that history online. In just a few weeks after the public launch, traffic to the site has quickly risen due to word-of-mouth recommendations and favorable reviews in blogs. Upcoming commenting features and widgets that people can embed elsewhere online will continue to excite and engage the community of fans.
The site's intuitive navigation and historical details, provided by the resident Hard Rock experts, draw visitors in and foster a close connection with the Hard Rock brand. "We expect people to spend significant amounts of time on the site, poring over memorabilia and reading the stories that connect a particular piece with the music or an artist that they grew up with and love," says Dee.
