WWE's most iconic prop, reimagined as a fully functional 5G phone. Built from scratch. Unveiled live at WrestleMania XL.
The brief for 2024 wasn't another sponsorship spot. It was a stunt. Cricket wanted to prove its 5G network in the most unexpected way possible, to an audience that respects spectacle and rewards commitment to the bit.
The concept: take the folding steel chair, the most famous prop in wrestling history, and make it a working phone. Not a prop. Not a mockup. A real, functional 5G-enabled steel folding chair that makes calls, sends texts, streams video, plays music, and runs a fog machine.
Producer, alongside Jim Vaughan. One of two Cricket projects where a custom physical object was fabricated from scratch, and in both cases the production challenge started not on set but in a fabrication shop.
The build meant engineering a steel folding chair with a working 5G radio, a built-in screen, and functional call capability, without it looking like a tech demo. It had to look like a wrestling chair first and a phone second.
Once the object existed, the production around it was a live-action spot with WWE Superstars Chad Gable and Otis of Alpha Academy, directed by Mike Bernstein through Superprime. Music by New Math. VFX and color through AFX Creative. Editorial at The Den.
Then it showed up live.
During WrestleMania XL on April 7, 2024, Chad Gable and Otis presented the actual fabricated Chair Phone on camera at Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia. A live segment, not a pre-produced cut-in.
Wrestling fans who had never seen the commercial were posting about it in real time within minutes, tagging @WWE and @Cricketnation simultaneously. People wanted to buy it. People couldn't believe it was real. People were furious it wasn't for sale.
A dedicated microsite launched at chairphone.com ("not for sale"), and a companion mini chair stand went out on a national Chair Phone Tour.
The live-action spot ran with WWE Superstars Chad Gable and Otis of Alpha Academy, directed by Mike Bernstein through Superprime. Music by New Math, VFX and color through AFX Creative, editorial at The Den.
The chair had to survive being handled like a wrestling prop and still work as a phone on camera. Every shot that shows it ringing, streaming, or venting fog is the real fabricated object doing the thing, not a comp.
I also shot the product stills for this one. Product photography for something that is not a real product you can buy, which is a funny sentence to write, but the shots did the job.