2023 was tough, and against a backdrop of a serious cost of living crisis, people were working harder than ever before - hugely impacting how they felt and how much energy they had for the things they actually loved.

At the same time, the UK energy drinks market was becoming an increasingly crowded and competitive space in which it was almost impossible to make it to the top: Red Bull’s ubiquitous presence, Monster’s huge retail footprint, and an onslaught of new challengers constantly emerging.

Far from an actual rockstar, after years of inconsistent communications, most Brits didn’t know what Rockstar Energy was or what the brand stood for, so our objectives were to drive brand awareness, favourability, and cultural relevance.

Rockstar was in need of a big moment to cut through the crowded category and connect with an exhausted audience that was struggling with the state of the world.

As an antidote to what people were feeling, we wanted to give them a unique experience that would lift them physically and emotionally in a way that is representative of both the brand and the product. From research, we knew music was our way in, but it had to be bold and innovative to stand out.

Our idea: a revolutionary interactive concert featuring Stormzy - one of the UK’s biggest and most energetic artists. Partnering with Spotify, the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service, we created a fully immersive and personalisable music experience.

Throughout the entire concert, users could switch seamlessly between 5 different worlds (and 5 different Stormzys) by simply tapping their screens. Each world represented our audience’s main interests (live music, gaming, travel, nightlife, and art), creating a completely personal experience giving people the emotional lift they were in need of and awakening their sense of play.

Following in-depth consumer research, we found that there was a new breed of energy drink consumers who live more for fun, pleasure, and enjoyment, and slightly less for the hustle. However, due to 2023’s crippling economic circumstances (inflation, cost of living crisis) people were forced to work harder and longer.

As their workload doubled and life got more expensive, it was impossible for them to find the time or energy for the things they enjoyed doing - leading to stress, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed. In the UK alone, 79% of people said that work stress was the most common type of stress they experienced (Statista).

Against this backdrop, and knowing that Rockstar Energy is a brand that truly understands the importance of play, we knew the role of this work was to elevate people’s spirits by empowering them to put their energy back into the things they love.

The experience was created by capturing Stormzy performing live in a studio, then rebuilding the performance using motion capture technology with Stormzy serving as his own body double.

Using this data, we recreated his performance in Unreal Engine - developing 4 additional unique worlds (and matching Stormzy avatars) for a total of 5 versions of the concert people could seamlessly switch between - each evolving with every song creating 75 minutes of original content.

After a two week tease campaign across social media, OOH, press, print, influencer activity, and contextually targeted audio ads, on Friday, 21st July at 5pm, just as people were leaving work drained from another tough week, we kicked off the weekend with our interactive multiverse concert experience on Spotify.

It was also broadcasted across YouTube and TikTok, in addition to immersive experiential screenings in major cities across the UK where our army of influencers were present to dial up the energy. The locations were specifically chosen as there was a high number of commuter footfall.

The experience was then extended to 5 other markets - some with Stormzy, others with local talent.

Following the concert, the brand continued to reach fans through a playlist generator activation, as well as offering six months free of Spotify Premium for some lucky buyers of the drink.

By partnering with Spotify, we were able to create a revolutionary concert experience giving people exactly what they needed, and made them see Rockstar Energy as their go-to enabler of play.

Concert impact:

- Highest active engagement time for a brand led campaign on Spotify in Europe (23.04 - 24.04)

- 215,478 unique concert experiences

- 4.5x the number of unique & engaged visitors versus previous brand-led digital experiences on Spotify

- 19MM views & 32MM listens (VTR & LTR significantly above Spotify norms), 14.9MM were 100% views

- 1.4bn+ PR impressions globally

- Featured in 30+ articles including Rolling Stone and Bloomberg

UK marketing results:

- 15.9 increase in brand awareness (3x above +5.1 Spotify benchmark)

- 14.2 point increase in purchase intent (10x above +1.4 Spotify benchmark)

- 14.9 point increase in brand favorability (6.5x above +2.3 Spotify benchmark)

- 15.5 point increase in brand association with music