Why were the photos from Miss America, Miss USA pageants from CA to TX, and National American Miss all Waldo-fied? What have they discovered about this new technology?
It’s simple. In today’s world, contestants and their families want their photos delivered conveniently, directly to their phones, in real-time, throughout the competition, and they want to easily share all their moments privately with their family members via an app.
These savvy pageant promoters have also figured out the brand value of pushing this content to their families in near real-time creating significant earned media for their events, as their branded photos are posted to social by the families. Being able to turn the photos into a larger revenue stream is the icing on the cake.
What is Waldo?
Waldo is a super-charged mobile photo delivery platform that uses facial recognition to automatically sort photos based on faces and delivers these photos digitally in real time.
For pageant organizations and photographers, this is invaluable — ask any organization and you’ll quickly find that pageant season is immensely busy. Aside from the obvious strain of prepping for the pageant itself, there are hundreds of different things that organizations have to focus on in order to host a successful production. The difficulty of managing social media posts and delivering quality photos from every pageant category they are competing in is a substantial part of the strain associated with pageant season.
How Waldo unlocks worlds of convenience for pageant photography
If you’re a pageant contestant, you understand how important photography is when it comes to the world of social media. Waldo enables you to have instant access to the professional-quality photos that were taken at your pageant, allowing you to share those photos with your followers at your convenience. Waldo provides the ability for contestants or parents to share their photo stream with up to 6 family members or friends. This is a great way for those unable to attend the pageant to enjoy the same real-time photo experience.
Waldo partnered with Miss America 2020 to provide a solution to this problem. Candidates were able to sign up for access to photos via text message with a personalized code and were automatically sent professional photos of on-stage and candid moments alike. This convenience proved to be a game-changer for the national pageant competition.
The crowning moment at Miss America 2020, shot and delivered through Waldo!
In the past, pageant photography has been delivered one of two ways: The photos were uploaded to a general online gallery prompting each candidate to have to spend time scrolling to pick out any images captured of themselves. Or, the candidates have to wait weeks after the pageant for the photographer to sort/curate these photos before they are delivered to the contestant.
Waldo’s AI-based facial recognition automatically sorts photos by faces in real-time, thus removing this barrier and allowing each candidate to instantly receive the best images captured of them during the event.
Waldo for Pageant Holders
If you’re a pageant organization, you know how important effective promotion and marketing is. Contestants who share their own moments from the pageant are the best form of organic marketing. With a few simple clicks, participants can easily share their photos on social media. Here’s the best part — these photos will automatically have your pageant’s brand filter overlayed on the photo and your hashtag included in the post. Candidates can share moments from the event so your pageant can maintain the visual consistency it needs across social media platforms.
In addition to real-time photos sent to your phone, Waldo provides access to a cloud-based system showing every pageant category to upload to. Photographers can utilize Waldo’s wireless DSLR upload feature to instantly get photos uploaded directly to the album of their choice. Crowdsourcing photos also becomes super easy here — you can invite participants and even event staff to contribute their photos to the gallery! Social media marketing can get complicated and mystifying, and if you’re a pageant organizer, you understand the need for content on demand over a long period of time. Being able to crowdsource photos through Waldo solves this hurdle.
Learn more about Waldo for pageants
As a pageant organization, you understand the need to remove as much of the clutter and complexity from your event as possible so that you can focus on what matters most. Waldo provides a simple, powerful solution for capturing and sharing incredible photography from the best moments of your pageant so that you can fully engage with the joy of the moment. Contact us to get a free demo!
