UNRESERVED at the Perez Art Museum Miami

Challenge

The South Florida Ford Dealers needed to increase visibility of Fordistas, its flagship experiential marketing platform during the world renowned Miami Art Week - one of the busiest and most competitive city-wide events on the cultural calendar. Art Week programming needed to elevate the brand’s mission to increase consideration among well-connected, untapped multicultural audiences while also conveying Ford’s ongoing improvements in vehicle technology.

Opportunity

Fordistas partnered with the Perez Art Museum Miami during Pop Life Thursdays, a monthly party for influential young museum members featuring curated music and exhibitions. Where much of Miami Art Week served the international jet-setting crowd with lavish brand activations or private gallery openings, the PAMM event specifically catered to locals who supported the museum year-round, offering Fordistas a mutually beneficial network of potential supporters.

Insight

In the Wynwood Arts District, demand for wall space among artists both inside galleries and on the streets becomes especially contentious during Art Week. The result: instead of beautiful work, art lovers on mural hunts often see a neighborhood full of white “buffed” walls featuring only the word “reserved.”

Emerging mobile technology can make the act of driving through the city streets looking for art an unrestricted and democratized experience, making fans the creators, observers, and amplifiers all at once – solving the problem of not enough space or art to go around.

Strategy

Partner with technologist Halsey Burgund of MIT’s Media Lab to develop UNRESERVED - a geo-tagging smartphone app that creates an immersive sound art experience on the streets of Miami - presented by Ford and launched at the PAMM during Miami Art Week.

Social Tactics + Results 

- Social campaign targeting Fordistas and PAMM Pop Life database invited fans to download the app and contribute geotagged sounds throughout the city, with over 500 fans participating in the first day.

- Behind the scenes content on Instagram and YouTube built anticipation around mysterious calls to download, with more info and rewards revealed the night of the event.

- Facebook event page supported by a promotional budget drove RSVP’s leading up to the event and expanded fan network to general art lovers. 

- Online experience taken offline through experiential activations at the PAMM and around the city, introducing approximately 1,000 attendees directly to a new face of Ford through brand ambassadors and driving actual time spent in vehicle totaling approximately 23 interaction hours. 

- Success of PAMM partnership extended to monthly even year-round, helping transform Ford's perceptions in South Florida.