CAMPAIGN: Cruisin’ Coolers at SXSW
CLIENT: Shipt
AGENCY: Factory360
For their SXSW debut, retail technology company Shipt set out to deliver relief to festival goers while creating social buzz to increase brand awareness and engagement. In the highly competitive and crowded SXSW environment, Shipt knew they’d have to get creative to capture the attention of the festival’s diverse mix of tech enthusiasts, media professionals, creatives, and industry leaders. Knowing that tech-savvy Millennials and Gen Z guests were likely to appreciate the convenience of delivery via Shipt, the brand highlighted its same-day delivery offering with two playful and engaging street marketing campaigns.
The five-day guerilla activation deployed a vibrant mobile street team to deliver essentials to SXSW attendees and local Austin residents. A larger-than-life, 10 foot tall “Shopper Chopper” cruised down the street, creating major buzz and inspiring tons of content capture. The show-stopping vehicle held an enormous grocery cart – outfitted with branded graphic panels and quippy messaging – atop a street-legal chassis that rolled through town, wowing passersby and delivering delight with relief essentials and snacks stashed in festival-approved fanny packs.
Along with the Shopper Chopper, a fleet of Shipt Cruzin’ Coolers zipped around Downtown Austin delivering ice-cold beverages, fans, sunglasses, and other essentials to help festival goers beat the Texas heat. Brand ambassadors – many of whom were real life shoppers with Shipt – sported green terry cloth short sets and green hair tinsel as they piloted the branded motorized coolers, which were outfitted with streamers, a branded partnership flag, LED accents, and a playful custom Texas license plate. A basket on the handlebars of each Cruzin’ Cooler held promo cards and giveaway items along with a wireless speaker playing upbeat tunes to keep the energy soaring.
In partnership with the experiential team from Celsius Energy Drinks, Shipt introduced a time-sensitive unique promo offer to drive conversion. The Celsius team provided 4,500 samples for Shipt to distribute from the Shopper Chopper, Cruzin’ Coolers, and roaming brand ambassadors, along with a promo card. Local influencers were brought on to capture on-the-ground content of the Celsius samples going out to festival attendees, creating social buzz and expanding reach.
To amp up excitement before arriving on site, shoppers with Shipt delivered customized gift boxes to media and influencers, packed with essentials for the wild week to come. The curated boxes, which included a 1-year Shipt membership along with festival essentials like a reusable water bottle, Celsius On-The-Go Powder Sticks, an Instax Mini Camera, a portable charger, Loop earplugs, and more, were hand delivered to homes and hotels, keeping Shipt top of mind for key guests during SXSW.
Media coverage of the program garnered 87 million unique viewers, while social and influencer impressions totaled above 184k, and physical distribution of giveaways and promo cards came in over 15k. With inspired strategy and nimble activation, Shipt hit its goals of engaging with its target audience, successfully leveraging local influencers, driving urgent conversions, executing mutually beneficial collaborations with CPG partners, and increasing brand visibility across the board.
