Challenge

ABSOLUT asked us to launch their limited edition Warhol bottle. When they cooperated with Andy Warhol in 1985 it was an innovative, provoking and talked about campaign. Since then, Warhol’s art has been duplicated thousands of times. Despite this fact, we were challenged to do a campaign involving risk taking and imagination.

Objectives

We were asked to build engagement online for the Andy Warhol limited edition bottle, and to link the ABSOLUT brand to imagination without boundaries through storytelling.

Strategy

Our strategy was to do a campaign as provokingly innovative as Andy Warhol would have done it himself if he had been here today. And why couldn’t he be?

Execution

We asked a group of international artists to invite Andy Warhol to make art with us once again. We recorded his voice from the other side using EVP-technology (electromagnetic voice phenomenon, developed in mid ‘50s). We built a story on this, through owned, editorial and social media, culminating in an unforgettable art performance in New York City with special guest: Andy Warhol – present from the other side (most likely).

Outcome

We started an online conversation on Warhol, ABSOLUT and creativity. The online buzz before our NYC art performance with Warhol continued post event on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and in editorials. with a total earned media reach of 150 million people.

We asked a group of international artists to invite Andy Warhol to make art with us once again. We recorded his voice from the other side using EVP-technology (electromagnetic voice phenomenon, developed in mid ‘50s). We built a story on this, through owned, editorial and social media, culminating in an unforgettable art performance in New York with special guest: Andy Warhol – present from the other side (most likely).

We prepared a PR plan, a messaging document and a thorough plan for media outreach. Vi arranged an AMA on Reddit, where our artists got to answer questions on how they would get in touch with Andy Warhol.

We used Absolut’s own channels as well as editorial media when highlighting our art collaboration and we made sure that not one art/nightlife influencer in NYC would want to miss the art performance in NYC, where the new bottle dries would be launched.

We started an online conversation on Warhol, ABSOLUT and creativity.

Just some hours after sending out the invites, the RVSP-list was full. When opening the doors to our art performance/launch event, the line was around the block.

The online buzz before our NYC art performance with Warhol continued after it, on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and editorials. with a total earned media reach of 150 million people.

We built engagement online for the Andy Warhol limited bottle edition, we linked the ABSOLUT brand to great storytelling and imagination without boundaries. As blogged by one of the visitors after the event: “These artists, like their inspiration, challenged conventions and through their own works helped to re-define what art is and can be”.

“What I think this event underscored is that his influence in the 21st century continues to grow,” Michael Hermann summarized the Andy Warhol Foundation.