“It was a purpose-led activation,” Danny Rodriguez, evp and global ecd, added. “It wasn’t in service of a product or selling anything—it was a way for the brand to reflect its values out in the world.”
Other winners that focused on problem-solving included “Scrolling Therapy,” a mobile app from Eurofarma and Dentsu Creative that gives people with Parkinson’s disease an intuitive tool for life-enhancing facial exercises, and Corona’s “Protect Our Beaches,” an education and sustainability program from Legacy Marketing that let bar patrons turn their empty beer bottles into sand within minutes, recycling more than 231,000 pounds of glass.
And in a rare treat for Los Angeles commuters—suffering with pump prices that regularly topped $6 a gallon—NBCUniversal and GDX Studios created a time-traveling promo to hype the reboot of Quantum Leap. Inflation-weary drivers could fill up their tanks for 91 cents a gallon, in honor of the 1985 setting of the original sci-fi series, addressing a major Angeleno pain point at a crucial time.
Creating IP
Commerce elements are inherent in experiential marketing, but brands have gone beyond mere swag in recent years, creating elevated products that drive the entire experience and intertwine the sensorial with the tangible.
In a 2023 twist, marketers are developing their own intellectual property rather than tagging along as sponsors to existing events. The brands then own the IP and can use it for broader campaigns and franchise building.
For software maker D2L, a leader in online learning, Toronto-based Zulu Alpha Kilo’s creatives reimagined a rigid piece of classroom equipment as a free-standing, malleable object.
The “Unstandardized Desk”—with hinged panels that could be moved around to form different shapes and ways of interacting—allowed students to create their own vision of a desk to reflect how they learn. The industrial design became the unique intellectual property.
“The brand believes education should be personalized to meet the needs of each student, so we picked something fixed and standard out of the school environment—a desk that hasn’t changed since our grandparents’ time—and attempted to personalize it,” Brian Murray, the agency’s chief creative officer, told Adweek. “It was a good hook to embody their philosophy—and they own it.”
On a musical note, but also built from scratch, Netflix and Doritos staged the first concert “streamed from another dimension” to tout Season 4 of Stranger Things. “Live from the Upside Down” featured ’80s favorite artists like Corey Hart, The Go-Gos and Soft Cell performing amid the special effects-aided trappings of the hit series.
For a different tentpole show, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Prime Video brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth to life at premiere parties in four global markets. Sets at the elaborate city-takeover events—punctuated by 40-foot-tall Elven towers, mountain scapes and lush forests—could have doubled as theme park attractions as streaming services and other IP owners are considering moves into place-based entertainment.
Storytelling through tech
The metaverse may not be living up to its early hype, and NFTs have faltered—“I’ve never seen a trend go away so fast,” per Cook—but advanced technology served as the backbone of many of this year’s winning activations. It’s not a strategy on its own, purveyors say, but a means to an end.
For example, eos staged a holiday concert with none other than the Christmas queen Mariah Carey on Roblox, aiming squarely at young game-loving demos, while Amazon Music Italia launched a “synesthetic experience” with a haptic interface so consumers could feel and not just listen to singer-songwriter Marco Mengoni’s new album.
