Featured in Campaign

At this year’s All Points East, a 10-day music festival held in east London’s Victoria Park in May and June, German spirits brand Jägermeister staged the most ambitious version yet of its “JägerHaus” – a multilayered venue featuring immersive elements, live music, bars and dedicated areas for experiences such as cocktail-making classes.

This year also marks five years since the JägerHaus concept was first unveiled, at Field Day festival in 2015. Designed to bring friends closer together through music in an edgy environment, the experience also aimed to promote the brand’s serves, such as its Ice Cold Shot and long drink Root56. Jägermeister wanted to deepen brand engagement among its core target audience of 25- to 35-year-old men.

While the activation has remained true to its roots, it has also evolved over the past five years, in line with the brand’s – and consumers’ – changing needs. Jägermeister has worked with Frukt for the past five years on the concept, its build and its evolution. For Jim Robinson, managing director at Frukt, one of the biggest challenges has been making consumers aware that there’s more to Jägermeister than the Jägerbomb.

“The JägerHaus is now widely respected as one of the best brand experiences at festivals – people look for it, spend time with it and return to it again and again,” Robinson says. “It continues to achieve what we wanted it to do. People tell us that their favourite things about the JägerHaus is the atmosphere that it creates and the music, with visitors able to see exciting new talent, combined with interesting, established artists on a small, intimate stage.”

Samantha Green, Jägermeister UK’s event manager, adds that the JägerHaus is an integral part of the brand’s marketing strategy. “It offers us an opportunity to engage with our core consumers and for them to experience the very best of the brand, alongside new talent and our key drink serves such as Jägermeister Ice Cold Shot and Jägermeister Mule,” she explains.

Green attributes the activation’s success over the years to a combination of consistency, in both approach and messaging, and the ability to make small tweaks based on customer feedback, delivering a more memorable experiece overall.

JägerHaus’ first five years

2015-2017

Its first inception was at Field Day in June 2015; between then and 2017, the JägerHaus travelled to 13 festivals, making appearances at the likes of Bestival, Kendal Calling and Reading. Guests could visit a number of areas within a massive structure, each with its own look and feel.

Spaces included the Lodge and the Backyard, where festivalgoers could enjoy a Jägermeister serve and participate in interactive games; the Warehouse, featuring live music; and the Loft members/VIP bar area, located on the upper floor. Each space was connected via luminous and aromatic tunnels to ensure a fully immersive experience.

By 2017, Robinson says the brand had increased its investment in programming and enhanced the sound and lighting, as well as introducing a bespoke DJ booth in the Backyard area. The list of cocktails available in the Loft was expanded, too, and the area was also reserved for a Berlin-themed brunch at some festivals, attended by the media and consumers, with each course paired with a Jägermeister cocktail.

For 2017, the brand also upgraded the Lodge space by introducing phone-charging stations, while it also improved the view of the stage from the Backyard and enhanced the artist experience on stage. The Loft space was overhauled to increase its VIP look and feel, enabling it to effectively showcase key Jägermeister products. A basketball hoop, dubbed “Give it a shot”, was also added to the structure.

2018

At 6pm every day, Jägermeister introduced the Ice Cold Hour, where trays of Ice Cold shots in glasses made of ice were gifted to consumers by brand ambassadors. Coveted Jägermeister merchandise such as bandanas and hip flasks were also given away. This was repeated in 2019.

2019: a new direction

Fast-forward to this year’s All Points East, where JägerHaus went even bigger, spanning seven areas within the structure instead of the previous six. The Lodge was transformed and renamed Basement Bar, reimagined as an underground Berlin-themed industrial space, aiming to immerse visitors in Jägermeister’s brand values. Wood panelling gave way to concrete-textured walls and bespoke wallpaper made from ripped JägerHaus line-up posters from the past five years covered the bar.

A new back bar lit up by “Ice Cold Shot” in neon lights enticed consumers to try the Jägermeister drinks on offer, while a specially commissioned stag mural encouraged visitors to capture and print their own memories from the JägerHaus via a “selfie spot” photo booth.

Those who could access the Loft were rewarded with a prime view of both the Warehouse and the Backyard spaces – which featured new furniture painted with Bauhaus-style patterns. Visitors could indulge in games such as shuffleboard or fußball on bespoke tables and enjoy complimentary Jägermeister drinks.

The woodland-themed tunnels of previous years were reimagined, too, with the neon tunnel, which linked the Basement Bar to the Backyard, refitted with neon tubes and overlaid with silver caging, in keeping with the new underground theme. The effect was so striking that the area became an unofficial selfie spot, with multiple photos of the space spotted across social media.

There was also a night tunnel filled with red, blue and green lights, with each colour revealing a vibrant set of images printed on the walls. This year, custom-made graphics were created for the walls in Bauhaus style, with hidden “ice cold” messages that were revealed intermittently as the lights drew visitors towards the next space.

The fences of the Backyard enclosure became a gallery of images showcasing the best of the music talent from All Points East 2018. Alongside classic Jägermeister drinks, the activation also featured the first-ever festival-specific beverage called All Points Passion – a cocktail of Jägermeister, passion fruit and grenadine – that was developed and served across the site.

What’s in store next year?

Green says the JägerHaus will be back next year and, judging by its 2019 iteration and feedback thus far, it is likely to keep to the “bigger and better” concept. For Robinson, listening to consumers and making adjustments has been crucial to keeping the activation fresh year on year.

“It’s easy to overthink how consumers will connect with what you produce – keeping it simple, fun and high-quality are what matters,” he says.

JägerHaus in numbers

• In 2015, JägerHaus appeared at five festivals and received just over 82,000 visitors.
• In 2016, it toured four festivals, reaching out to just under 65,500 festivalgoers.
• 2017 saw two festival appearances, with more 61,000 guests, while in 2018 just over 60,000 visited the experience, again at two festivals.
• Thus far in 2019, JägerHaus has appeared at two festivals, with just under 84,000 music fans taking part.

Featured in Campaign (Ghost-written)

Given Red Bull’s symbiotic relationship with the music industry over the past twenty years, the news of the much-heralded Red Bull Music Academy being dropped by the brand has sparked much intrigue and surprise by fans and speculators alike.

On a macro level, a clear provocation is whether this is a curtain-call for Red Bull in music, with a loftier conversation also worth of discussion around what this means for the brand and music landscape in totality.

We look closer at Red Bull and the branded entertainment landscape to provide answers to these questions, as well as some predictions for the future.

Red Bull x Music

Having bulldozed their way into the space with their multi-market, ownership model, Red Bull has become a key player in the global music game, spawning iconic properties such as RBMA and Red Bull Culture Clash, that has helped it maintain an almost unrivalled level of awareness and authenticity for a non-endemic brand in the music space.

In a wider sense the energy drink powerhouse has been a pioneer and flag-bearer for both passion and experiential marketing, and their activity continues to serve as inspiration and best practice across these disciplines.

But an ownership model comes with a hefty price tag. Maintaining owned events, academies and radio stations, to name but a few of their assets, requires significant and ongoing outlay across aspects such as management, production and promotion.

Alternative approaches, for example a sponsorship or partner-led approach, sees equity borrowed from existing and often bigger and more relevant music entities, sharing and reducing costs in the process.

Whilst this leads to a dilution or reduction in exclusive assets or IP, this represents a much less risky road for brands seeking to leverage music on a shoestring, or whilst trying to find their dancing feet.

Having invested so heavily in music over the years, and with a vast array of best practice platforms and activations in their arsenal, we see Red Bull’s move as being more strategic and operational than existential.

As time passes, we anticipate that they will leverage this significant equity in a more targeted way, through focused and locally-led initiatives over global properties, enabling them to meet different objectives with culturally nuanced and multi-dimensional activations in-market.

Brands x Entertainment

So what does this mean for how other brands leverage the music industry? It’s certainly a valid question but the short answer, seemingly, is not a lot.

In truth, we’re living in somewhat of a gold rush in terms of branded music activity. As such, a more pertinent question FRUKT has been asking recently is whether we’ve in fact reached saturation point, with primary challenges to address around quality and effectiveness, rather than those of quantity or full extinction.

Reacting to an increasingly cluttered digital world, the experience age has seen brands upping their experiential budgets year-on-year in a bid to engage with audiences IRL, with music a key battleground.

And for mass-market brands especially, passions have been employed successfully as a means to segment their audience and marketing activity.

This has seen brands building up wider entertainment strategies, for example Red Bull’s growing presence in gaming building on their historic associations with music and sport.

Interestingly, a more recent trend has seen the convergence of these individual passions, bringing together, for example, music and sport, music and gaming or even all three.

As with any marketing activity, the quality will simply be defined by the quality.

Our recent report on brand partnerships reveals a universal audience desire across passions – that word we all know – purpose.

Of course, ‘purpose’ is a much-uttered and oft-maligned term in marketing parlance – we all know that audiences will prefer brands who authentically stand for something.

So in lieu of claiming your caffeine-hiked energy drink is going to ‘save the world’, experiential activations, the lifeblood of entertainment strategy, provides a natural home for brands to tackle and assist with targeted, real-world challenges and tensions without shoe-horning a loftier brand purpose. Examples include giving back to the gaming community, providing a platform for aspiring musicians, saving decaying venues or providing spaces for a kick-about in communities where this is currently out of reach.

Conclusion

To conclude, for Red Bull – the show will go on. Given the great job they’ve done setting themselves up for future success, we’ll continue to see a lot of great work from them in music, as well as other cultural spaces.

And for the industry, this is merely indicative of a chapter-change in the ever-evolving entertainment marketing story.

Challenge

Hot on the heels of Mastercard’s first-of-its-kind, groundbreaking global agreement and multi-year partnership with Riot games for League of Legends Esports, FRUKT was tasked with conceptualising and producing an experiential activation to establish the brand as trusted and authentic sponsor at the 2018 World Championship held in South Korea.

The goal was to curate a platform to provide unforgettable Priceless Experiences for fans of League of Legends Esports, the largest Esport in the world.

Catalyst

Mastercard’s platform is built around connecting with people through their passions. The aim was to bring this positioning to the world’s largest Esport, engaging fans with Priceless Experiences and benefits.

The world of League of Legends Esports has a unique relationship with its fans, who have helped build the Esports scene from the ground up. Every League of Legends fan has played a pivotal role in their passion’s meteoric rise, and is directly invested in its culmination at the World Championships.

Mastercard recognises that League of Legends Esports fans are inherently active contributors to their community, and champions this positive connectivity though shared Priceless Experiences around the League of Legends World Championships.

How We Pressed Play

The Mastercard Nexus was based in The Kunsthalle, a modern industrialist venue made up of 28 recycled shipping containers, seen as an epicentre of cultural and artistic innovation in Gangnam Gu, downtown Seoul.

The three-day experiential pop-up featured a number of ways that fans and members of the public could get closer to the Esport they love, including:

Experiences

• ‘Become a Champion’ through social, shareable Augmented Reality experience
• Play on high-performance gaming PCs and experience Riot Game’s Snowdown Showdown 1v1 game mode that is used exclusively at the All-Star Event
• Customise your very own Mastercard Nexus Jersey
• Watch the final at an exclusive streaming party
• Be in the chance of winning Priceless Surprises including:
  – Opportunity to play 1v1 with a pro player on the Nexus stage
  – League of Legends merchandise and in-game skins
  – Tickets to the World Championships final
  – Behind the scenes tour and a rehearsal viewing of the Opening Ceremony
  – Opportunity to watch a game with a League of Legends pro player from VIP seats
  – Participate in an on-stage playtest of the gaming PCs the pros will compete on during the World Championship Finals at Incheon Munhak Stadium

Education

• Learn “how to stream” – from basics to advanced – at Twitch’s Creator Camp

Inspiration

• Meet pro players and teams
• Have your photo taken with Cosplay Characters
• Watch high profile Twitch influencers stream live Engage in shoutcaster appearances, Q+A, meet and greets and autograph session

Challenge

Attended by over 80,000 people year-on-year, EGX is the peak annual exhibition for brands in the gaming industry in the UK.

In 2018, PlayStation returned with their biggest stand yet and, following a successful pitch process, FRUKT were tasked to enhance and optimize on previous years to ensure it was the stand of the expo.

One overarching aspect of the brief was to incorporate an overarching theme, something that had been lacking in previous years, in support of their overarching brand message to to ‘Celebrate The Players’.

Further key point of the brief was, of course, around gameplay – with our response needing to ensure comfortable yet striking areas were created to accommodate 17 key game titles and 6 PSVR releases.

Catalyst

The tension we worked from was the how gaming had transcended from the virtual world back into the real world, with its huge prevalence taking it into wider culture, from football celebrations to gamer influencers, celebrity gamers and even Hollywood blockbusters.

Thus, ‘real world of gaming’ become our springboard for creative.

How We Pressed Play

Three ‘real world’ iterations were considered, before deciding on ‘The Players Village’, a look and feel inspired by the olympian-like commitment of PlayStation fans, and the togetherness and spirit of competition of EGX.

Spanning 2011m², FRUKT created an open-plan or ‘open-world’ area with  9 exhibition-stylized gaming zones.

The Players Village theme came to life through a neighbourhood-style layout, with distinct wayfinding segregated by olympic flags that championed both PlayStation and their players.

An emote (celebration) photo opportunity gave people the chance to on their best game-faces, before sticking their photo to our Players Wall of Fame before, unbeknownst to them, seeing their photo showcased on 7 hanging flag-inspired screens surrounding the stage for all visitors to see, truly putting them at the crux of the activation.

Our central arena focal point was an elevated stage hosted by the PlayStation Access team but powered by the fans. Attendees could take part in and observe exclusive gameplay, group fun activities like FortNite floss-offs, all wrapped up in giveaway sessions. One highlight featured the retro gameshow-inspired ‘Ultimate PlayStation Quiz’ hosted by the access team, where one lucky PlayStation fan was presented with the grand prize of a special edition 500th Million Edition PS4 Pro Console. We also created a bespoke, designated area for PSVR inspired by our Spring Showcase work – 14 pods showcasing 6 game titles, with guests welcomed via a large 3D VR headset at entrance.

Challenge

Back in 2014, Nando’s had a long-term vision to fuel the music industry both creatively and literally by giving back to the music community and feeding artists. Additionally, they wanted to raise awareness and create connections between the UK and their South African heritage – where the brand started and the famous Peri-Peri chilies
are grown.

How We Pressed Play

As a result we created the Nando’s Music Exchange, a platform where artists from both UK and South Africa could exchange musical influences and cultures. The aim is to inspire and facilitate collaborations and give up-and-coming musicians unrivalled access to the best musical talent (who also happen to be Nando’s loyalists). For three years running, the Music Exchange has held a workshop that sees 20 young musicians from London and 5 from South Africa brought together for a production workshop day hosted by top artists such as Stormzy, Example, Little Simz and Toya Delazy. This is hosted at the London Roundhouse where Nando’s continue to sponsor part of their studio space.

Their aim is to work collaboratively to create an original track from scratch using sounds from both countries. The established artists field Q&A sesssions over lunch (Nando’s, of course!) and during the afternoon, they drop-in to each of the groups to give them hands-on-advice about their tracks, with final feedback at the end of the day.

Results

• 5 amazing new tracks
• Participants from 3 countries
• 1 track played on BBC Radio 1Xtra
• Coverage from The Line of Best Fit, Music News and Digital Spy

I like to think Don Draper and I have quite a lot in common.

Maybe it’s the creative genius, sharp dress sense and dashing good looks. Or perhaps the checkered past, underlying personality issues and hints of alcohol dependency.

Either way, since starting at FRUKT, a London-based experiential agency representing my first foray into the world of marketing, I have felt naturally closer to the brilliant yet wholly fictional Creative Director at SC&P.

A year down the line, and with the Mad Men obsession train still gathering pace, I find myself in a perpetual state of comparison between Matthew Weiner’s ultra-realist portrayal and my own fast-paced, high-tech reality.

With the show’s final curtain recently dropped, this fascination has become palpable. How much has the industry has changed? How does my work relate to that of Don? Indeed, with FRUKT growing and Don’s P45 in the post, would he want a job here at FRUKT? Heck, would he even survive?

Like Don, I was plunged into the industry from relative obscurity. And indeed, aside from what I had seen in the early episodes I, quite simply, knew nothing.

I had never prepared a ‘deck’. I thought a ‘millennial’ was some sort of multicolored, sugar-laced confectionary. And a tissue session, well…let’s not go there.

These ‘everyday’ industry terms were all completely alien to me. Had I not been paying attention?

Well, maybe not.

Mad Men begins in 1960, at a time when you could smoke in bars almost as liberally as you could advertise the cigarettes themselves. Don’s biggest client is Lucky Strike.

We see billboards, newspaper ads and Readers Digest coupons. Typewriters, corner offices and artwork designed by hand. It’s traditional advertising in all its glory.

Fast-forward to today. From client services, through planning, creative and design, the structure is still quite similar, but the world is very different.

Google Adwords, relationship marketing, the Instagram economy. E-mail, PDFs, hashtags. It’s 21^st century marketing that still feels new yet won’t stand still.

Times change in Mad Men too. It keeps fresh what is, narratively at least, a pretty uneventful drama series. A quiet fascination with the golden age of advertising pulls us through. This is no Breaking Bad. The big pitch wins and historical timestamps providing the thrills in lieu of the meth labs, Mexican drug cartels and machine gun-laden finales.

We see consumers evolving too – the clothes, the hairstyles, the furniture, all reflecting the ever-adapting trends of New York, and indeed the world as a whole.

But what has become clear to me is that the consumer is always evolving. It’s this constant change, reflected subtlety but powerfully in Mad Men, that defines this industry. The ability to adapt is the only way to keep on top.

FRUKT’s mere presence is testament to this. Experiential marketing scarcely existed until the turn of the millennium, and has been cited as a reaction to a market that is overcrowded, and showing no signs of abating.

Perpetuated by the onset of the internet, the active, easily-distracted and downright impatient consumer (that’s YOU!) demands engagement on a more personal and emotional level.

So where does this leave Don?

Will he be swapping the tailored suits for a pair of Hunter wellies? Manhattan with Farringdon? Is it his turn on the beer dolly?

I feel to find the answer you need only to watch one scene from Mad Men’s very first episode.

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.”

This quote instantly resonated with me, and re-surfaced when I started my career.

In the modern, non-stop society of 7 second videos, 140 characters and click-to-order taxis, a new order has emerged that has to weave through the traffic in order to reach the heart of the consumer.

Don shows, within one hour of our meeting him, that he inherently understands this truism, one that has survived for half a century, and will live on forever.

It’s one of the wonders of working for an experiential agency – seeing at first hand, people enjoying their experiences and their interactions with brands.

From Coca-Cola, through Lucky Strike, down to the new app you and your mate dreamt up last night in the pub – make your potential customers happy. Keep your existing customers happy.

Don knows it. So yeah, I think we’d take him. He can sit next to me.