︎

Bud Light - SXSW

Creative Direction, Innovation, Experiential and Strategy







The Ask


Use SXSW as a way to Reestablish Bud Light’s credibility and leadership in the music space by crafting a collaborative, fun and memorable experience where fans can engage with musicians in an innovative and meaningful way.





The Ideation – Bringing Art, Music and Fans Together


Art inspired by Austin and the new Visual Identity meets musicians performing at Bud Light Factory. We created a series of (playable) interactive pieces of musical art which fans engaged with and completely made their own.





The Solution


Interactive music posters were born. These magical paper posters, triggered by touch and the body’s electric current, allowed users to remix music by performers who played on the Bud Light Factory stage.
 
The musicians captured the attention of fans, influential music publishers, and showcase performers and gave credibility to the Bud Light’s place in music and the overall experience.
 
The interactive music posters became a physical manifestation of our new music platform, utilizing groundbreaking technology to evolve the experience of our fans.



The Production


Just like the creation of music, the conception and construction of the experience was wholly collaborative. We worked with an experiential agency, musicians, visual artists and a technology partner to bring Bud Light’s core creative idea to life.
 
Our start-up technology partner invented conductive ink that can be printed on any paper. When touched, the electricity inside the human body sends a signal to a custom designed matchbook-sized circuit mounted on the poster. The circuit connects via Bluetooth to a computer that hosts custom-written software, triggering pre-programmed songs that have been stripped down to their base elements.
 
The posters were designed with Bud Light’s custom SXSW artwork to create a new visual identity that fans would connect with – both literally and figuratively. We mapped the conductive ink to the visual touchpoints. This means that when a fan “played” a spot on the wall, he was touching a specific Bud Light icon.





The Consumer Experience


When multiple people simultaneously touch different areas of the interactive music poster, the song elements play in rhythm allowing people with no musical training to live-remix a song together.
 
We used Bluetooth headphones to allow users the ability to change between songs and collaborate and remix different samples without interfering with the overall audio effect.
 
Fans were blown away by the experience of remixing music from their favorite artists on the posters. The artwork and headphones made the Bud Light Factory the perfect place for selfies. The instant ability to be a DJ meant fans created and shared videos which boosted our social presence.




The Artist Experience


Celebrities and musicians couldn’t wait to get their hands on the wall, to remix their own music and watch fans do the same. Playing with the emerging technology and seeing the power of collaboration exposed them to a different and innovative way to connect with their fans.

Artist Testimonials –

Bob Moses




Aluna Francis (of AlunaGeorge)




TransViolet





The Results


From the streets of SXSW to the front page of USA Today, fans engaged with the different elements of music and got to be their own artists. That is the impact of a deeply emotional connection to the music.

At SXSW –

  • 85+ Interactions/hr
  • 5,500+ Unique Guests

On Social –

  • 14,600,000+ Total Impressions
© Gusto – Since 1984