As Lincoln set out to reimagine itself, we needed to reach a new audience — one for whom Lincoln had no relevance. We developed a series of cultural reimaginings under the campaign theme "Hello, Again," and this was the kick-off, featuring musician Beck. We wanted to demonstrate what it means to make something familiar new and exciting again, so we reimagined the entirety of the creative experience of a concert, from the song, to the performers' experience, to the experience of the live audience and the audience that sees the concert recording after the event.
We built an immersive digital experience featuring Beck's reimagining of David Bowie's "Sound and Vision". In the process, we brought together 168 musicians, ranging from the UCLA drum line, to an Alpine horn player, to a gospel choir, an orchestra, a yodeler, 11 electric guitarists, and on and on... Chris Milk came on board to help us record the experience binaurally and in 360 degrees of film, across three orbits: from Beck's POV in the round; from the POV of the audience of 300 who sat in a ring around him; and from the vantage point of the outer ring of musicians. We essentially reimagined Bowie's song, the concert experience, and the experience of witnessing a performance secondhand (and it sure beat the iPhone videos I'm compelled to shoot at every other show I attend). We extended the content across social channels throughout the course of the year, and appealed to music fans and thought leaders alike.
A series of five "BTS" films was created to extend the technical and creative story and illuminate the passion and some 3,000 hours of collective work that went into this project. These BTS films explore the process behind the experience, from the redevelopment of the music with Beck and his dad, arranger David Campbell; to Chris Milk and the technologists who made the virtual experience possible. This extended content gave us a new way to bring people into the brand ecosystem while driving home the idea that Lincoln was back and stands for a reimagined outlook: a symbol for the "creative Elite". In the process, we developed a Webby, Clio, One Show, FWA, and Cannes Lion-award winning experience.
Another interesting tidbit: brand favorable opinion not only shot up in response to this non-commercial content, but traffic to Lincoln's "Build and Price" shopping page also experienced a positive jolt.
Symbolic value = commercial value.
And it's a lot more fun to convey!
Publishing
We published the experience to a unique digital platform (www.helloagain.com) that offered facial recognition through a web camera to determine the user's view and audio experience.
We published long form stories about the technology, the music, Beck the musician, and Chris Milk the technologist (delving into the early days of VR), and even the concert poster photographer Peter Hapak, all to the client brand's content hub. We also published unique social units across client social channels, as well as Beck's channel and Chris Milk's. And David Bowie himself shared the experience on his own Twitter!
While this project was created at a time with limited social targeting capabilities, we did craft unique posts for unique psychographic audiences and saw great early success in engagement.