A brand activation campaign brings about engagement in a way that other strategies simply cannot. Your messaging, imagery, and outreach campaigns all matter, but a brand activation stands alone as a truly unique way to engage your target audience—it all goes together to create a meaningful consumer experience.
Effective brand activations are engaging, interactive experiences or events that build brand awareness, foster emotional connections, and drive measurable business outcomes. Having intention behind your brand activation makes all the difference in maximizing its success.
Understanding how to activate your target audience with full impact empowers you to build lifelong connections. This guide highlights some of the best brand activation campaign examples to provide inspiration for achieving a similar lasting impact.
BNY Mellon celebrated 240 years of existence with a fresh brand identity, featuring a modernized logo, shortened name, and contemporary color palette. The updated branding was newsworthy in itself, symbolizing a new era of innovation, but it was the accompanying event that truly brought the identity to life.
Rolling out the changes involved multiple steps. In partnership, we updated over 200 pieces of BNY signage around New York City, ensuring consumers directly saw the change. However, the key outreach took place on the official 240th anniversary, with the company holding an event to unveil and celebrate the revitalized look.
The logo launch event engaged 23,000 employees and sparked an 18-point increase in audience awareness. The complete refresh and associated activation brought a boost in brand visibility and positioned the brand as forward-thinking.
Airbnb’s “Live There” campaign helped reframe what travel looks like, challenging the notion that travel is synonymous with stale itineraries and packed tourist destinations. Based on their research findings that many people felt travel was more stressful than relaxing, Airbnb sought to convert the idea of travel from renting a space to actually “living like a local”.
The brand paired the campaign with the launch of a refreshed app with new features, like unique personalization, a host matching system, and authentic travel recommendations from local guides. By using the campaign to emphasize authenticity, culture, and emotional connection at every touchpoint, Airbnb activated users to put the principle of immersive travel into practice.
The campaign resulted in a 13% increase in bookings and deepened customer engagement while reinforcing Airbnb’s commitment to its brand mission of “creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere”.
Nike’s ”Made To Play” campaign spotlighted a problem and activated adults around a challenge to address it. The campaign highlighted the crisis of inactivity facing children around the world. The effort started with a website dedicated to the issue, a fresh visual identity to match, and a playful launch video that dared adults to take action.
Centered on a genuine mission to get kids active, the campaign developed a full resource ecosystem, offering opportunities to learn more about the issue, providing resources for coaching, and spotlighting community organizations to get involved in, like Women Win and Play Academy. The campaign also pulled in over 180 international professional Nike athletes and influencers to join in spreading the message, including tennis legend Naomi Osaka.
Ultimately, the campaign resulted in 863K impressions and a 67.9% completion rate. Along the way, the activation positioned Nike as a global leader in encouraging sports activity, all while putting Nike’s products and branding front and center, keeping the brand fresh in their audience’s mind as they gear up and get active.
Affirm’s 2022 “Seize Prime Day” campaign presents an exciting virtual brand activation campaign example, even without a physical event. Affirm paired its efforts with Amazon’s Prime Day to build momentum and attention around the brand as an effective payment option.
In a comprehensive campaign, the brand worked with Amazon to have itself branded on delivery packages, an interactive wake screen on the Fire tablet, and ad placement on Amazon’s homepage. The key was a link that offered rewards like a $2 Prime Day credit for visiting the brand hub and $25 Amazon credit for spending $100 with Affirm.
All together, the campaign helped build brand awareness, strengthened brand trust, encouraged more people to try out the service, and pulled them in. The activation resulted in 100 monthly users across nine business units and led to a measured 10% rise in potential revenue.
Salesforce hosts the yearly Dreamforce conference to activate across audiences and present itself as an industry thought leader, providing a fun and immersive learning and networking experience. The conference brings together leaders from around the sales, marketing, and ecommerce worlds to participate in informational presentations, hands-on training, keynote speakers, fireside chats, and more.
Dreamforce showcases the value of AI tools and provides industry insight into how individuals can transform experiences for their consumers, become more efficient, and grow their business. It’s far more than just a conference—it’s an inspiring get-together complete with musical performances, an amusement park, and more.
This comprehensive experience achieves several goals for Salesforce, resulting in greater brand loyalty, enhanced audience engagement, and an indisputable reputation as a thought leader in the industry. Attendees walk away from the experience knowing that they can turn to Salesforce for the type of insight that brings lasting business success and inspiration
IBM’s Calling the Shots is one of the most intriguing brand activation examples you’ll find. IBM partnered with the United States Tennis Association to display the capabilities of its watsonX generative AI technology, setting up an AI-powered shot tracking table tennis experience at tournaments for passersby to try out.
The experience collected information on ball speed, shot paths, and swing speed, using it to play back AI commentary on the match in one of three personalities. Between motion-sensing paddles and an LED wall with real-time game data, users saw the data tracking and analysis process firsthand. An additional kiosk allowed them to interact further with watsonX and learn about its other applications.
All together, the activation gave participants a hands-on opportunity to see watsonX in action and showcased the technology’s unique versatility. Meanwhile, the campaign highlighted IBM as a leader in applied AI solutions and raised awareness about the many ways they can be applied to businesses.
In a truly unique brand activation campaign example, Google worked with artist Lachlan Turczan for Milan Design Week to embrace the concept of ”Making the Invisible Visible”. This partnership resulted in a complete art exhibit that turned light into physical and tangible shapes. Visitors felt that they could almost touch abstract beams of light draped out in sculptures and shapes.
The activation highlighted how abstract ideas can be translated into material forms. In this case, the abstract idea was light, but this idea was symbolic of something more—art and design resulting in something real and meaningful. Google’s Ivy Ross equated the concept to her research on cymatics, sound, vibration, and shape, eventually leading to the creation of the Google Pixel watch.
Visitors saw Google’s values of turning ideas into innovation—they also received unique, direct insight into how Google manages processes, like using lasers to scan and shape earbuds. The activation engaged attendees in a unique manner and reinforced Google’s reputation as a leader in innovation and creativity.
These brands transformed themselves in multiple ways, from refreshed logos to new product launches. However, the pairing of a brand’s efforts with a compelling activation was the difference maker. Although a refreshed app or logo might have been enough to generate excitement and boost brand awareness, it was the attached experience that elevated it.
Remember these important takeaways:
Successful brand activations engage, inspire, and motivate your audience. By weaving together elements like storytelling, intentional design, and clear audience insights, you can create experiences that deliver measurable business impact.
Brand activations bring your brand’s value to life through engaging experiences. A meaningful and well-planned activation invigorates an audience and inspires them to act, and the above brand activation campaign examples highlight the potential they hold.
VSA has a decades-long track record of inspiring successful brand activation campaigns with storied legacy brands and underdog brands alike. With a proprietary process that drives an in-depth understanding of your target audience and foundational brand identity, we develop creative and innovative activations that resonate and encourage meaningful interactions with your brand.
Explore a world of successful brand activations, and get in touch with VSA to start discussing how you can put these principles into practice.
