Sunday will see both Wales and France, and home team Japan and South Africa go head-to-head, in the hope of making the semi-finals next week.

With the competition well underway, there have been a couple of names in the industry which have been getting in on the action in various ways.

Each year, the ‘Player of the Match’ award is presented in the form of a specially designed trophy. This year, Mastercard and professor of Information and Systems at the University of Tsukuba, Jun Mitani have worked together to create new technologically advanced changes to the award.

The design now incorporates Japanese heritage in celebration of the first-ever Rugby World Cup in Asia, as well as a ‘live’ feature.

Featuring a sculptural origami design, the trophy is finished live on the ground following each game using laser etching technology.

Taking on a story-making approach to the etching, technology which monitors fan activity on social media, will be used to add real-time highlights of the game, onto the award.

As the official sponsors of Ocean Outdoor’s digital out-of-home (DOOH) coverage of the global competition, Hugo Boss Parfums, BOSS BOTTLED has enabled the firm to extend its coverage.

As a result of the partnership, Ocean’s coverage of the tournament also includes Landsec’s Piccadilly Lights, showing twice a week and running right up to the final on November 2nd.

Kevin Henry, head of content and sponsorship at Ocean comments: “[Piccadilly Lights] is an iconic canvas which further establishes Ocean’s credentials as a sports and entertainment broadcast channel, bringing world class sport to outdoor audiences in premium handpicked environments.”

The newly designed Player of the Match trophy incorporates real-time commentary

Various adverts are also being shown across the DOOH provider’s digital screens in six UK cities and feature one-minute clips of the games so far.

Derek Manns, digital advertising manager at Landsec adds: “Piccadilly Lights is one of the world’s best-known locations for brands to showcase their campaigns.

“Broadcasting content adds another dimension to this unique platform, and we’re excited to be partnering with Hugo Boss and ITV Sport RWC to bring this exciting global moment live to people in Piccadilly Circus.”

Ocean also secured a partnership with ITV Sport and Westfield in which it showed the England v France game on its large screen in Westfield Square, London on Saturday October 12th.

If you have any news, please email carys@linkpublishing.co.uk or join in with the conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn.