mazda | sxsw 2015 | official automotive sponsor
This is Mazda’s first year as the official automotive sponsor of SXSW, what that means is 10 months of work for a 10 day festival. I was co-creative lead with my copywriter, managing a small team of creatives, multiple vendors, and numerous partnerships. We were in charge of everything from experiential, digital, social, digital content and print. 15 pounds later and a head full of grey hairs we get to add a great book piece.
brand message: connect with the road, the world, the moment.
Everything Mazda does is centered on the driving experience, the connection between car and driver, driver and world. And it’s the same for SXSW. It’s about being in the moment and connecting with new ideas and people. So we focused on the power of connections.
PARTNERSHIP WITH MOGEES
We teamed up with Mogees Ltd, their product combines an app and vibration sensors to transform any object into a musical instrument. We attached these little guys to the surface of our Mazda3 and invited attendees to create music by tapping on various spots of the car. We added social sharing component and utilized this technology for various activations across SXSW—6th street, the Hype Hotel venue, and a segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
PARTNERSHIP WITH Hype Hotel
Hype Hotel known for showcasing emerging artists discussed on music blogs. This partnership gives us an opportunity to connect to up-and-coming music through exclusive online performances, interviews and content. For attendees who tweet our hashtag, they are entered to win front-of-the-line passes and access to the HypeOn/Mazda VIP lounge. In the outside part of the venue, we rigged a Mazda3 with Mogees and invited attendees to interact and create music with the vehicle. Attendees were also treated to two surprise “Mazda3/Mogees” performances by Odesza and Best Coast.
AUSTIN CONVENTION CENTER: MAZDA LOUNGE
At the epicenter of SXSW is the Austin Convention Center, here we created an indoor lounge space where attendees can relax, recharge their devices, sign up for our shuttle service, and interact with screens to gain access to valuable SXSW information. I worked closely with Visionary Group in developing the contents and look-and-feel of the space.
MAZDA Express shuttle
During the festival, transportation sucks. Most people are out-of-towners, its hot/humid/raining, multiple streets are closed, lack of taxis and Ubers. We wanted people to experience our cars personally so we created Mazda Express, a free shuttle service that would drive you anywhere within a 5-mile radius within Downtown Autsin. Handrasiers = free rides.
PARTNERSHIP WITH Fader FOrt
Fader Fort is a hipster bacchanal of emerging artists and surprise mainstream guest performers. For attendees who tweet our hashtag, they are entered to win front-of-the-line passes and access to the Mazda VIP section. To engage attendees, we created periodical Instagram Selfie-Scavenger Hunts with our hashtag to win premium Bose headphones, Bose speakers, and Fader/Mazda VIP passes.
digital
With a massive OLA media plan with Pandora, Hype Machine, Fader, Mashable and numerous publications, we created a centralize hub to direct them to. Here consumers can learn more about our activations via a interactive map, gather information about the festival, and stream new music from Hype Machine. We also created a UGC wall that aggregated social postings that use our hashtag during the event.
