Schweppes is on a mission to encourage people to get out and socialize, living out their brand belief of ‘Born Social.’ But a media touchpoint was getting in the way of this. 73% of people admit to using noise canceling headphones to avoid social interaction.

The Social Sound flipped noise cancellation to sound celebration with an immersive audio experience taking you on a sonic journey to a secret venue, discovered only by listening to the direction of the music. Never before has music been synced to live GPS that reacts in real time to the listener’s location.

In South Africa, Schweppes is a challenger brand. The competition outspends Schweppes, making it even more important for us to resonate within culture. Amapiano, a Nguni word loosely translated to “the pianos” is a subgenre of house music that emerged in South Africa in the mid 2010s. It is a hybrid of deep house, jazz, Zulu, and lounge music characterized by synths and wide, percussive basslines. It grew in popularity in social media and digital streaming platforms, allowing artists to connect with new audiences and build their followings at a local level and expanding their influence globally. Over the past two years alone, Spotify has recorded 563% streaming growth in Amapiano as the genre is becoming increasingly popular.

Daliwonga became singing in his school choir and is now one of the top Amapiano artists today at the forefront of bringing the genre into the spotlight. In his own words, the genre is “an original sound from South Africa, and I’m proud of saying that.” The emphasis on melody over vocals means that it’s a highly danceable beat and popular in festivals, dance halls/clubs, and among both DJs and live shows alike–making it the perfect sound for our immersive audio experience encouraging socialization in Cape Town.

In 2023 Schweppes launched their new global brand platform “Born Social,” a reminder to the world to live life as they were born—social. The brand needed an impactful activation to launch this platform and serve as a pilot that could be implemented in other markets around the world. From a business perspective, increased socialising means more consumption, and the marketing objective was to boost the salience of the Born Social platform, enticing our audience to overcome routine defaults that prevent them from being in the mindset to get social.

We found that 73% of people wear headphones to avoid social interaction. Schweppes, a brand known for tonic water, believes socialising is essential. So we used the same headphones that cause isolation to create a social movement, with a never-before-seen (or heard) audio experiment: The Social Sound.

While people walked through the city center in Cape Town, Amapiano sensation Daliwonga invited them to an exclusive concert at a secret venue. The catch? You could only find the live show if you followed the music. We turned headphones into a sonic GPS, creating the first-of-its-kind navigation system linking geolocation to 360 degree audio. If fans heard the sound from the left, they turned left. From the right, they turned right. The music reacted in real time to the listener’s positioning. And the closer they got to the venue, the fuller the sound, clueing them in which direction to go.

We wanted to turn our brand POV into a behaviour and bring our viewpoint into culture. To do this we focussed on our target demographic “Young Seekers,” extroverts ages 25-40, who are open to new tastes, experiences, and trends. These Young Seekers in South Africa are more likely to be fans of Amapiano (local Afro beats genre) music, which has seen 563% streaming growth on Spotify over the past two years. This context was the perfect opportunity for Schweppes to live out our brand belief and encourage others to do the same.

While people walked through the city center with their headphones in Cape Town on December 29, Amapiano star Daliwonga invited them to an exclusive concert at a secret venue you can only find if you follow the music. We turned headphones into a sonic GPS, by creating the first-of-its-kind sound navigation system linking geolocation to specially designed 360 degree audio. If fans heard the sound from the left, they turned left. From the right, they turned right. The music was entirely immersive and reacted in real time to the listener’s positioning, even coming from behind them if they turned in the wrong direction. And the closer they got to the secret location, the louder and fuller the sound, clueing them in which direction to go along pedestrian walkways. The live concert was held at a stunning yet unsuspecting location–the rooftop of an office building in the city centre.

Social conversation about the brand increased 5805%, earning 10,500% more social mentions than the main competitor; all with 0% negative sentiment. Social reach for the one-day event hit over 1,817,532 with 1,599 unique mentions. This made #Schweppes the trending topic on Twitter/X for 6 days in a row in South Africa.

We packed the secret venue (limited to 300 people) and listeners reached an average audio duration of 18 minutes 54 seconds while they used the music to guide them to the location. We hit the highest search volumes in 4 years in the country.

Coverage in National TV News Broadcast SABC TrendzLive earned a reach of 11.8M, digital coverage including Biz Community and Carve Africa had a reach of 13.5M, and national and local radio coverage included Heart FM “Cape Town’s Beat,” The Switch station’s “Heart Squad,” and 5FM South Africa.

The digital audio experience that led up to the live performance is a prime example of how Schweppes aims to intercept the target audience in moments when they are heads down in social media but not socialising in person. As a brand centered around live, in person and on premise consumption, we knew leading from the digital sound to the live physical concert would be key. And since headphones are often a digital barrier, we turned them from an anti-social device into a social one.