The Email is Dead Exhibition was a design led experience that lived in residence for 30-days at the Design Museum in London. The experience told the story and historical significance of email, it's impact on culture and what the email may look like in the future.

No.

Every year writers, media and tech aficionados alike predict the death of email, using the phrase “Email is Dead.” This phrase has become a bit of a mantra among a certain segment of the tech world. So this year, to prove that Email is NOT Dead, we created an ironic exhibition entitled Email Is Dead.

Situation:

Culture at large was telling everyone that email is dead. “Gen Z is going to kill it” they’d say. From Business Insider to the Wall Street Journal, even thought-leaders like Scott Galloway were telling marketers that email marketing was dead. Our own research showed that email marketing is one of nearly two dozen tactics used by marketers to drive traffic to their websites and acquire or retain customers – making it an easy thing to drop in favor of more modern channels.

With pressure to divest in email mounting, Mailchimp needed to take a stance.

Brief:

Create a public statement and take back the “email is dead” narrative.

Objectives:

Shift perception of email and Mailchimp with b2b marketers and the public

Increase Mailchimp's brand awareness in the UK market

Generate Earned PR and help end the email is dead debate once and for all

Budget: 1 million USD

Since culture at large was telling our B2B Marketing audience that email is dead, we decided to play into the idea and take back the “email is dead” narrative by throwing email a funeral, reshaping the conversation to celebrate the power, longevity and effectiveness of the medium.

The funeral came to life in the form of an Exhibition called "Email is Dead", at the Design Museum in London. Visitors experienced colorful, interactive displays, a wall of emotional and impactful emails sent, an email personality test, a typeface inspired by the first email ever sent, a custom music track made of synthesized compositions and actual email data, and even an Eau du Email scent we infused into the exhibition space. Email is Dead touched everyone's senses while laying out email’s past and showing how it will inevitably shape our future. Proving to our B2B marketers that it's more alive than ever.

The design direction for Email is Dead was focused on bridging the nostalgia and history of email with Mailchimp’s quirk. Bold use of Mailchimp’s cavendish yellow is seen throughout as well as a pixelated grid pattern meant to mimic the digital space. Animated 3D rendered illustrations were created to evoke a similar notion to those used within a typical email browser; paperclip, arrow, @symbol, paperplane etc.

The exhibit was bridged into three parts, Design is Powerful, Design is Personal and Design is the future. Everything expanded from these three pillars.

We designed all of the touch-points within the exhibit to engage each one of your senses. From our bespoke email sounds, to an email sent, playroom and visual stimulus, people experienced email like never before.

The exhibition took over 4 months to build from start to finish.

The patrons of the Design Museum in London? Well, they loved it. More than 25,000 people visited Email is Dead during our 30-day exhibition, leading to over 16,000 email leads and 5.7 million social media impressions with news coverage garnering over 84 million in earned media impressions. The experience even helped increase brand awareness by 92% in the UK market.

Every year, people debate the death of email and question its relevance as new forms of communication are developed. But more than 50 years after its inception, it’s still being used by more than four billion people. Email is more important than ever. And if there’s anything we learned creating this exhibit, it’s that email is inspiring, and its own creative art form that's more alive than ever.

Email is Dead? Not even close.