Continuing its “Born to Mix” positioning, Absolut is encouraging human connection, both IRL and in the metaverse, at this year’s Coachella music festival.
“Coachella at its core is a powerhouse cultural event that converges music, art and even fashion – that’s right in our wheelhouse and it’s what our consumers expect from us,” said Matt Foley, Absolut’s vice president of marketing. “ Our core consumer is drawn to meaningful and diverse experiences and people. They crave human connection and live for experiences over material things.”
For the actual festival, the brand is launching a “Find Your Best Festival Friend” platform (powered by Hey! VINA) to help aspiring festival goers meet up both in person and in the brand’s metaverse activation. The platform uses the now-familiar swipe and match function and also includes a quiz that will help users match with like-minded “festie besties.”
“Whether faced with getting back out there after the pandemic, or a desire to hit the festival circuit but not having that friend who feels the same, Absolut’s new connection platform mixes diverse personalities over a shared love of music, culture and cocktails, in a way like never before,” Foley said. “We see how ‘phygital’ marketing experiences foster new connections and bring people together, which is why Absolut has further invested in Coachella to create an all-around inclusive experience.”
That ethos extends to the metaverse, where the brand has added new features to the “Absolut.Land” virtual destination it created last year. In addition to returning features such as The Absolut Bar, a PRIDE tunnel and Selfie-Sports, the updated destination includes a line of cocktail-themed NFT wearables, a “Wild Berri Dance Battle,” (where users can earn some of those aforementioned wearables), and a DJ Booth Stage that will feature avatars of Coachella performers Two Friends DJing and offer a curated playlist.
“When launching Absolut.Land in 2022 there were so many unknowns as the space was relatively new,” Foley said. “Fortunately, we found that we had a lot of the right ingredients and so for 2023, we kept some elements that performed well and mixed in fresh engagement moments to add new excitement for consumers that reflect where we are now as a brand for an even bigger and better experience.”
In its 11th year as the Official Vodka of Coachella, Absolut has extended the availability of the brand’s Absolut Festival Lemonade cocktail sold at the festival. The brand has created a home-delivery kit of the cocktail ingredients that consumers can order (and have a second kit sent to a friend). Developed in partnership with TV personalities (and friends) Rachel Recchia and Genevieve Parisi, the kit also includes friendship bracelets created by Little Worlds Project.
Taken together, all of the Coachella-connected activations are designed to bring the brand’s global “Born to Mix” global marketing campaign to life, Foley said.
“As a company, we evangelize conviviality and new frontiers like the metaverse where the possibilities are endless for consumers to connect and mix together through shared experiences,” Foley said. “We wanted to extend that idea [and] make it easy for consumers to make new connections. We know not everyone is ready to dive into the metaverse so we created another forum for mixing, with Coachella as the timely moment to inspire the action.”
