CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

This is the story of how we helped ‘blow up’ the Balloon Museum’s first London-based instalment to epic proportions. Launching on Boxing Day 2023, we coded our campaign to become a ‘TikTok trap’, with the aim of circumnavigating purse-pounding inflation and the death of media in London during the festive season. Through a shrewd mix of social-first storytelling, carefully considered visuals, and FOMO-formatted PR, we welcomed 150,000 members of the public alongside over 1,400 journalists, content creators and influencers in the first four weeks alone

THE BRIEF

 Following successful limited time runs in New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, Madrid and Naples, the Balloon Museum was about to make its highly anticipated London debut at Old Billingsgate market. Featuring twenty internationally acclaimed artists’ inflatable works, W Communications’ client Lux Holdings set out to make this the must-see event of the year.

With a succinct brief devoid of hot air, our tasks at first appeared simple:

• Launch the London ‘EmotionAir’ edition of the Balloon Museum
• Sustain ongoing interest and fuel ticket sales

THE CHALLENGE

Through 2023 and into 2024, the UK continued to suffer from the worst cost-of-living crisis for over 40 years.

But it wasn’t only money that made the December 26th launch date a challenge – a second insight left us concerned about the exhibition’s place in people’s lives. Over the Christmas period, nearly four million ‘Londoners’ leave the city to go ‘home-home’ to see family and friends.

It was clear that we had no choice but to make this the hottest ticket in town.

THE SOLUTION

Knowing that leisure and tourism attractions are increasingly driven by TikTok, our mission for the Balloon Museum was to completely blow-up social feeds. In effect, we would shift our emphasis from ‘tourist trap’ to ‘TikTok trap'.

With a such wealth of mind-blowing, hyper colourful content available to capture – with installations including an enormous psychedelic ball pit and other artworks including oversized inflatable rabbits, bubbles and beach balls– we would help make the exhibition attendees Creative Directors themselves.

Entirely social-first (and hard cost free in approach), each visitor would become an individual creative force within the campaign, contributing to our growing TikTok trap image by image, video by video, share by share and like by like.

Underpinned by a hardworking media strategy with a laser focus on converting titles with high SEO value, including features in The Guardian, The Times, Time Out, Metro and The Handbook all supporting a burst of ticket sales. By New Year’s Eve, the ripples of the exhibition had started to hit the sound waves with Capital FM, Heart FM and even BBC’s Women’s Hour.

With a dreary January as our cultural backdrop, we hosted Sam Thompson for his first presenting gig on This Morning and welcomed BBC News for their own standalone segment.

Whilst opening sales were promising and we’d welcomed nearly 100k people by mid-January, the ever-extending exhibition meant that we had to ensure that the Balloon Museum stayed on the front pages, top of news feeds and search engines. Cue our two-pronged hosting programme.  

Firstly, we wanted to make that Balloon Museum was the destination for any celebration big or small. We sought out these moments with each individual content creator so they could spend the day in pure inflatable joy.

Secondly, our hosted reviews brought an ongoing wave of coverage in newspapers and lifestyle titles from both national and international media.