Overview
Brightside is an exciting new Alberta-based mobile app that is making a bold impression by serving up financial services in a simple, accessible, and modern way. As the app itself is an entirely online experience, the marketing team at Brightside looks for meaningful opportunities to get out into the local community, creating in-real-life connections with their audience and building awareness and credibility for the Brightside brand.
A recent partnership with Alberta Beer Festivals was an ideal fit for Brightside, an opportunity to be involved in the community, support local organizations, and embrace the passions and interests of their audience. The #BeTheBrewer Contest, held online prior to the festival dates, gave the public a chance to create a beer by voting on various aspects like style, name, and label design. Olds College then brewed the resulting beer, which would be available to taste and enjoy at Calgary International BeerFest and Edmonton Craft Beer Festival. When Brightside was ready to bring the Ctrl-Alt-D’Wheat Hefeweizen to life in an eye-catching, crowd-stopping activation, we grabbed a seat at the bar and got to work.
The activation needed to create a major sharable moment for festival goers, one that would not only encourage them to step inside, explore, sample, and engage, but would motivate them to pull out their phones to snap and share. The activation needed to deliver a memorable and positive experience, one that would create not only a great first impression but a lasting affinity for the Brightside brand.
We seized the opportunity to get creative and pulled out all the stops. A wheat tunnel, beer can wall, and bright graphics intrigued passersby and made it nearly impossible not to stop, explore, and Instagram. Additional fun and unexpected inclusions like a giant game of Jenga, a live DJ, cute life-sized plush goats, and casual and comfortable seating areas made visitors linger longer and take even more photos. Extensive graphics throughout the activation achieved the brand awareness Brightside needed, but were done in a way that complimented rather than took away from the sharabilty of the activation. The overall experience felt comfortable, natural, inviting, and best of all, unique.
Impact
The Brightside team was extremely impressed by the number of visitors who were not only curious but excited to engage with the activation; better yet, the experience was intuitive and natural, meaning guests didn’t need to be coached on how to engage and didn’t become confused or lose interest along the way. The end result of a successful activation was twofold: a boost in positive brand awareness through an in-real-life experience, and a huge amount of user-generated content shared online.
