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Ignite, AE Live’s in-house creative design agency, has been awarded Gold in the “Sports: Program Open / Titles” category at the recent Promax Global Excellence awards.
The Promax Global Excellence awards is regarded as the world’s top prize for outstanding achievement in entertainment marketing and design. It celebrates the trailblazers of the industry and honours the best of the best of brand-defining campaigns, that turns viewers into fans, engaging audiences through every screen, and driving bottom-line results for the largest media companies from around the world.
The Ignite team was appointed by World Rugby to provide the Front End/Open/Titles for this record-breaking tournament. The 2021 Rugby World Cup, the ninth staging of the women’s Rugby World Cup, was held in Auckland and Whangārei, New Zealand. It was the first women’s Rugby World Cup to be hosted by New Zealand, and by a country in the Southern Hemisphere.
With New Zealand being the home of many indigenous Polynesian people, maintaining Māori Iwi protocols was central to this project.
Ignite’s narrative was an abstraction of a kaikaranga (female Māori caller) greeting the rugby community with the hongi (traditional Māori greeting), symbolically inviting the world’s best to play across the land, with the karanga written and performed by Tarumai Kerehoma-Hoani from Ngati Whatua Orakei.
The chosen patterned textures symbolised the land, sea and sky, representing the ongoing harmony and disruption between the elements. With the striking Rugby World Cup score, fortified by Māori instrumentation, the epic visuals delivered to a truly authentic and ratings-smashing global sports broadcast.
Steve Jamieson, Executive Producer TV & Live Content at World Rugby, said: “The Rugby World Cup 2021 Opening Titles were something special for World Rugby. AE Live Ignite’s design and care to get every aspect of them accurate to Māori culture was outstanding. The time and dedication of the team resulted in this wonderful title sequence welcoming the world to Aotearoa New Zealand and the RWC.”
Ignite is fast becoming a recognised award-winning creative design agency that is gathering momentum and global appeal amongst the sports community. The Ignite team, which has offices in NZ, UK and US, has already won gold this year at the ANZ Promax Awards, for their work providing the title sequence and entire match graphics package for Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022, along with Silver (Best Program Package Category, Star Sport ICC Cricket Live) and Gold (Sports Best Program Front End/Open/Titles – Amazon Prime’s Global Excellence 2022) awards at last year’s Promax Global Excellence awards.
Ignite has a strong history with rugby, and recently delivered the entire graphic design package and title sequence for the Rugby World Cup France 2023, with critical acclaim from the industry.
Ignite was purchased by AE Live, a world-leading global provider of data and broadcast solutions, in 2020. Along with the Rugby World Cup, AE Live’s impressive portfolio also includes (amongst many others) Premier League Productions, BBC, ITV, Sky Sports, WTA Tennis and Fox Sports.
In July 2023, AE Live announced the acquisition of Silver Spoon, the industry experts in innovative, real-time virtual production content on Unreal Engine, joining Ignite in the AE Live Group.