FMBE Awards 2023: Most Immersive Event (Controlled Audience)

GOLD TRO – Unite Students

The category saw some exceptional events for major brands. All of the finalists showed winner potential.

In spite of the quality that it was up against the gold winner came through relatively unscathed as it garnered support from all quarters.

This campaign impressed by taking a simple idea and using it to solve a major business issue. In the end a campaign that called itself the #NoBrainer delivered because of the careful and attentive planning that went into it.

The event was a massive Donut Drop, using modular stands and multiple engagement techniques to connect with thousands of students IRL and further drive web traffic at a critical 8-week window that is used for booking and rebooking accommodation.  They toured 18 cities, delivering 55 events in 8 days. The stands featured inclusive recipes, donut designs, pinball games and donut trampolines, together with DJs. With all of this going on the calls to action for booking accommodation was never lost.

The entry was full of references and insights that showed how and why the brand experience was seen as a business critical by Unite Students and the revealed the confidential ROI data to our judges including the direct revenue consequences.

And whilst we cannot share that specific data here, comparative data to 2021 is available.

▪ Target: Increase sales from ‘Exclusive Launch Week’ from 2021 by 50%

o Result: Increased by 74% from 2021

▪ Target: Increase sales from ‘National Launch Week’ from 2021 by 50%

o Result: Increased by 230% from 2021

▪ Target: Increase website visits by 80% from 2021. Increase online bookings by 100%

o Result: Website visits 97,936 (+105% vs 2021). Online bookings increased by 400%

▪ Target: Influencer video views to hit 50,000, content of which was captured at ‘Donut Drop’ events

o Result: Achieved 63,000 live influencer video views (exceeded target by 26%)

Additional revenue for Unite Students rose by 247% vs 2021.

More than 35,000 students attended, a massive 50% of Unite Students total customer base.

Jim Williams, Senior Domestic Marketing Manager for Unite Students testified: “The Donut Drop activation was a bold step forward for our business and TRO’s role in both concept and delivery was hugely influential. The massive success of the delivery of the campaign sent a wave of positivity and excitement through our teams, including our property staff, as well as our customers, and delivered on our strategy to kick-start the launch of our sales cycle and create momentum for the rest of the campaign. The team at TRO are a pleasure to work with – always positive and always with a smile even when under pressure – and there’s no doubt that we would not have been able to deliver such a successful campaign without them.”

SILVER Jackanory – Hyundai

This campaign impressed our judges by bringing to life a creative concept that is crucial to the credentials of the car. It was the world’s first car-powered hotel. Bringing to life the Hyundai IONIQ 5’s unique ‘Vehicle-to-Load’ technology, Hotel Hyundai turned the IONIQ 5 into a staycation hero offering a luxury boutique stay complete with a restaurant and cinema – all powered by the car.

Hotel Hyundai was used for multiple audiences including consumer competition winners, influencers and press. A personality-led photoshoot featured TV food critic Grace Dent.

The event made great use of sustainable materials and locally sourced food in order to match their audiences’ interest in environmentally friendly staycations.

The car was always the hero of the project and was used for test drives and station collects as well as impressing with its battery power that ran the luxury hotel experience.

BRONZE Circle – CCEP

This event, for Coca Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) is an annual event that CCEP hosts for its 220 Away From Home (AFH) customers.

By blending music and comedy with presentations set against a video wall, Circle completely revamped this event creating brand engagement on unprecedented levels and a near 50% increase in commercial meetings generated by it.

BRONZE N2O – Superdrug

Part exhibition, part workshops, part party, Superdrug Presents is a landmark in the calendar for the retailer and the brands that it retails.

Across four days, Superdrug Presents had 4,412 attendees, of which 72% were the target Gen Z or Millennial customers. Within a week of going on sale, all tickets for Presents sold out, raising £55,000 in revenue and showing that N2O made a highly desirable event that appealed to the target audience. Out of the total attendees, 64% of them had 10 out of 10 opinions of Superdrug following the event. 

100% of brands declared they would repeat.

BRONZE We Are Collider – Waitrose

The Waitrose Winter Food Festival was in many ways similar in terms of content and objectives to Superdrug Presents.  Again, the retailer played host to the brands it retails for a ticketed exhibition and workshops event.

52% of attendees had redeemed a discount off their tickets by using a MyWaitrose Card suggesting that they were existing loyal customers. Overall, 78% off all attendees were ‘satisfied’ or ‘extremely satisfied’ with the event and 80% would attend another Waitrose Festival suggesting that loyal customers had indeed had a quality experience. 

150 suppliers attended and showcased over 500 of their products, a significant increase on previous years. From the post-event questionnaire, 100% of the suppliers said that they would attend again the following year.