Bumble & Bumble Guests Take an Immersive Style Vacation

When we think about immersive experiential marketing events, we tend to picture interior spaces — storefronts or trade show booths designed and decorated to pull visitors into an environment that’s solely about the brand. One example: a pop-up by haircare brand Amika that took visitors on a journey through a series of color-saturated vignettes corresponding to the brand’s packaging. eBay’s Hype House created a similar effect at a trade show by reenvisioning the online auction site as a house filled with fashion, sports, and other products.

Immersive experiential marketing is powerful, drawing visitors into the brand’s world to connect with them both physically and emotionally. That’s easier to build and run indoors, of course, but even brand activations and pop-ups that take place outdoors can borrow elements from immersive marketing to make an impression on visitors. One example: haircare brand Bumble & Bumble’s recent New York City activation, which used a glass-walled truck, clever props, and a whole lot of coconuts to connect with consumers.

The goal of Bumble & Bumble’s activation was simple: generate awareness for the brand’s Long Last Styling Cream through a mobile experience. Staged in NYC near a Sephora location, Bumble & Bumble and Promobile assembled a crew of brand ambassadors to distribute samples and offer visitors a memorable, if brief, tropical vacation.

Start with a Theme

Bumble & Bumble chose a tropical vacation theme for its activation. The glass-walled box truck chosen for the event was customized and wrapped in colorful graphics based on a poolside resort motif. The broader footprint for the activation — the area immediately surrounding the truck — featured green artificial grass, flowers, palm tree graphics, and other tropical-themed props and a “Style Vacation” photo opportunity ripe for social media sharing.

The theme’s purpose went beyond interesting graphics, however. The concept behind the activation was offering visitors a micro-vacation in the middle of their daily routine. Located outside Sephora — a premium spot for a beauty brand — the truck was designed to be visually arresting enough to catch the attention of passers-by, yet accessible enough to feel friendly and inviting. Who doesn’t want to sit poolside at a tropical resort every once in a while? Bumble & Bumble’s activation took them there.

“Immersive experiences engage the audience on a deeper level by creating a sense of presence,” says Draw & Code. Blending strikingly out-of-place elements — palm trees, tropical flowers — with a familiar context made the activation memorable.

Provide Refreshments

The tropical resort theme extended beyond palm tree graphics and tropical flowers. Bumble & Bumble also offered guests real coconuts to sip.

For a brand that’s about food or beverage, offering free treats at a pop-up, brand activation, or other experiential marketing event is a no-brainer. What about brands that aren’t about food, including beauty brands like Bobbi Brown? Providing on-theme refreshments to visitors adds sensory elements to the experiential event, creating a more fully engaging, immersive atmosphere. Immersive experiences often use a combination of cues for visitors to see, hear, touch, feel, smell, and even taste to enrich the experience, says Draw & Code. In Bumble & Bumble’s case, the event offered tactile, aromatic, flavorful cues in the form of real coconuts, dehusked and cracked on site by brand ambassadors. Visitors sipped coconut milk from actual coconuts branded with the Bumble & Bumble name.

Offer Giveaways and Other Souvenirs

Visitors to the Bumble & Bumble truck took away more than coconut milk. The brand also gave away more than 2,000 samples of the product, Long Last Styling Cream, and garnered more than 6,000 impressions on social media, thanks in part to aspects of the event that invited guests to point, click, and share.

Outside, a tropical themed backdrop encouraged participants to pose for group photos and selfies of their micro-vacation while they sipped coconut milk. Inside, a magic mirror turned into a photo booth.

While the term “photo booth” might suggest a traditional curtained booth, modern photo booths are capable of much more than static images against a backdrop. do much, much more, and even the relatively simple still-photo aspect can come with several cool twists. In Bumble & Bumble’s case, the booth was cleverly disguised as a mirror, so users had the pleasant surprise of getting photos of themselves. The photo strips produced by the booth were Bumble & Bumble branded — a key element of any photo booth activation. Why branded photos? Branding ensures that the photo booth doesn’t distract visitors from the brand and its purpose. When users interact with your activation, ideally “every element and touchpoint points back to your brand,” advises Social Exposure. At Bumble & Bumble’s activation, that included the coconuts.

Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing agency based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile Marketing has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Get in touch to discuss your next project.