At the inaugural SXSW London festival this week, nestled within Shoreditch’s Truman’s Brewery, Unilever’s washing powder brand Persil demonstrated an activation that merged robotics, street football, and wearable art—all powered by Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot, Spot. The fast-moving goods giant was looking to avoid a gadget showcase, but instead demonstrate how technology, when grounded in […]
At the inaugural SXSW London festival this week, nestled within Shoreditch’s Truman’s Brewery, Unilever’s washing powder brand Persil demonstrated an activation that merged robotics, street football, and wearable art—all powered by Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot, Spot.
The fast-moving goods giant was looking to avoid a gadget showcase, but instead demonstrate how technology, when grounded in storytelling, can bring brand values to life in innovative ways.
The latest chapter of Persil’s ongoing “Dirt Is Good” campaign – which has been championing the joys of getting messy for over two decades – sees the brand exploring the gritty, red-mud pitches of Brazil’s várzea street football, which typically takes place on the nation’s flood plains.
The aim was to create a tech-driven physical experience during SXSW, a week-long festival that first established itself in Austin, Texas, that celebrates cutting-edge technology and creative innovation.
According to Tati Lindenberg, Persil’s chief brand officer and head of Unilever Fabric Cleaning, the experience needed to marry “the physical with the digital”, by creating “a tangible, wearable memory” akin to a real mud stain on a shirt after a game of football.
Step into the cage
Stepping into the activation space on the first day of the event, in a room located on the second floor of the Truman’s Brewery, felt like crossing continents: visitors walked through bunting of pristine red and white football jerseys to enter The Cage, a virtual várzea pitch where depth-sensing AI powered ZED cameras track every feint, flick, and dribble.
Guided by a digital footballer, visitors were invited to show off their skills—however modest—and every move was captured in real time.
AI cameras transmit data on velocity, body position, and speed to Spot to prepare mud stain pattern
That data—velocity, body position, and speed—was then translated into G-code, the language that instructs CNC machines and 3D printers. But instead of building a model or etching on a surface such as the walls, the data was transmitted to Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot, stationed behind glass like a high-tech artist’s studio.
Spot, sporting a custom-made ‘paint arm’, interpreted the player’s movements as dynamic brushstrokes, spraying them onto a crisp white t-shirt. Each shirt became a wearable snapshot of the player’s motion on the pitch—a visual representation reflecting the dirt, sweat, and spirit of várzea football. According to Unilever, the whole operation was powered by a private WiFi network.
Visitors then received a bottle of Persil detergent—underscoring the brand’s message: “Don’t fear the mess, embrace the play.”
Avoiding “tech for tech’s sake”
It’s easy to get swept up in the sheer spectacle of a robot painting t-shirts live at SXSW, but the technology wasn’t at the centre of the story here—it was the enabler. Lindenberg, herself a proud Brazilian, was keen to stress that the activation was driven first and foremost by storytelling.
“Spot enhances the experience but isn’t the protagonist,” she explained. “The player is. We wanted Spot to make shirts dirty, just like real várzea games. Dirt is a badge of honour—a celebration of play.”
The idea stemmed from Persil’s Varzeanal Cup campaign, which celebrates the rough-and-tumble street football culture in Brazil, where muddy shirts and skinned knees are part of the fun.
Meet the robots making the leap from stage to workplace
Replicating that mess at a London event, with real mud, was out of the question for the organisers (although the good-humoured, well-healed London hipster crowd in attendance would probably not have minded!).
This is where Spot was introduced to not only solve the problem but enhance the experience.
Mindshare, the creative media agency on the project, brought the idea of using Spot to life, thanks to its relationship with Boston Dynamics. Together with partners including Hogarth, Subvrsive, Metro Production Group, MullenLowe, and KondZilla, they crafted a seamless blend of physical and digital worlds.
The shirts may be clean but dirt is a badge of honour according to the campaign
Christopher Knott, global business director at Mindshare, noted that Spot had never been used this way before. “This isn’t the off-the-shelf solution Spot was designed for,” he said. “We had 3D-printed parts, custom code, and integrated different data sets to make it work.”
Initially, Spot’s painting was triggered by every movement, even walking slowly, resulting in shirts that looked more Jackson Pollock than street football. By refining the code to track only high-velocity football movements, the team achieved a more authentic várzea aesthetic. “This we achieved a few hours before the experience went live!” Knott added.
A multi-sensory experience
Lindenberg is keen to stress that what sets this activation apart from many tech-heavy showcases is its commitment to multi-sensory engagement. Guests weren’t just watching Spot; they were co-creating with it, becoming part of the artwork, and taking home a tangible reminder of their experience.
This interplay between human and machine was at the heart of the design. Hogarth’s creative technologist, Eunah Lee, explained how the system worked:
“When you step into the cage, AI tracks your body and velocity. That data goes live to Spot, which translates it into paint strokes. The colour we chose was a red-brown tone, representing Brazilian dirt. We wanted to replicate the real-life stains of várzea players—just without the actual mud.”
SXSW visitors were invited to show off their skills
This level of detail, from AI-driven motion capture to the calibrated paint sprayer, demonstrated how robotics can transform experiential marketing into something both deeply personal and brand-aligned.
Future of robotics in brand activations
Both Lindenberg and Lee see a bright future for robotics in experiential marketing—but with a caveat. The technology must serve the story, not the other way around.
“If I can tell the story without robotics, that’s great,” Lindenberg said. “But if robotics enhances it, making it more sensorial and engaging, that’s where brands should go.”
Lee added that Hogarth is already pushing the boundaries with robotics, from using Boston Dynamics’ discontinued humanoid robot Atlas for research purposes (which involves a highly ambitious plan to use it for cinematography in hard-to-reach or dangerous places), to creating digital twins for virtual production workflows.
“We’re working closely with Boston Dynamics to prototype creative use cases. But this was the first time we used Spot to paint—and it’s something I think we’ll see more of in the future,” says Lee.
