Title	THE ANDY WARHOL ART EXCHANGE BY ABSOLUT
Brand	THE ABSOLUT COMPANY
Product/Service	BEVERAGE
Category	C01. Use of Digital in a PR campaign
PR Agency	JUNG RELATIONS Stockholm, SWEDEN
Entrant Company	JUNG RELATIONS Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Jonas Sevenius	Jung Relations	Creative/Strategic Director
Oskar Sundblad	Jung Relations	Digital Director
Simon Karlsson	Jung Relations	Production Manager
Julia Stenius	Jung Relations	Creative
Jacob von Corswant	Jung Relations	Creative

The Campaign

With the Andy Warhol Art Exchange, Absolut Vodka asked people from all around the world to unleash their creativity by creating and exchanging digital art. By pinpointing behavioral trigger points in social and digital media, we made users from 97 countries create, connect and join this global creative movement. The campaign generated global buzz, brought Absolut’s and Warhol’s iconic collaboration into the 21st Century and supported the sales of four million limited edition Warhol bottles during the most competitive sales period of the year.

The Brief

Our strategic research showed that nostalgia would not be a way to engage Absolut’s millennial audience. Therefor, the objectives were very much centered around online engagement and earned media: • Take Absolut’s iconic Warhol collaboration into the digital age • Build a global, digital campaign that engages Absolut consumers around the world • Earned Reach KPI: 250 million • YouTube KPI: 400 000 views • Drive sales of 4 million limited edition Warhol bottles

Execution

We created The Andy Warhol Art Exchange – the world’s largest art exchange, allowing online users from around the globe to unleash their creativity by creating and swapping digital art. All participants were matched with another randomly selected artist – one lucky winner even received an original artwork by Warhol himself. Artists, influencers, media and online users from all around the world signed up and created art with our custom-built brushes, a kaleidoscopic pattern maker, a motion-based webcam transforming body movement into art, and the dual screen solution allowing participants to use their smartphones to paint at their laptop screen. All artworks were displayed in a gallery and at the end of each month, all participants were randomly matched with another artist, with whom they exchanged artworks. People immediately understood this art exchange was something out of the ordinary. The buzz grew organically and soon we had a global movement.

• With more than 11,000 created artworks from 97 countries we met the objective of creating a truly global digital creative movement. • The buzz around the art exchange and the limited edition Warhol bottle was fantastic with an earned media reach exceeding 400 million (vs the objective oe 250 million). • The Andy Warhol Art Exchange teaser videos had more than 1,1 million YouTube views (objective was 400 000 views). • The average user spent more than 4 minutes on the art exchange web site, which by far exceeds what they spend on the main absolut.com site. • 4 million Limited Edition Warhol bottles flew off the shelf at liquor stores all over the world.

The Strategy

Warhol’s 1986 Absolut painting doesn’t necessarily grab the attention of the new generation consumers. To Absolut’s target group, our strategy was to evoke their desire to be creative – and to invite a global audience into a digital creative movement. We found inspiration in Reddit Secret Santa, a global and digitally driven service where people around the globe sign-up and participate in a digitally driven gift sharing program. Like Reddit’s Secret Santa, our idea was to create a digital service that engages and connects people – a service they want to use rather than interruptive advertising.