VUSE
How a festival activation strategy gave Vuse a way into culture.
Vuse had a growth problem with nowhere obvious to put it. No product innovation to talk about. Comms channels restricted by regulation. Regulatory pressure mounting. And an audience in New York, LA, and Miami that couldn't be reached through conventional means.
The answer was culture — specifically, the festival spaces where Vuse's audience actually showed up. I developed the end-to-end experiential strategy: which cities, which festivals, what kind of presence, and how to turn a single moment of activation into a sustained brand relationship.
The Problem
The challenge for Vuse was multifold — regulatory constraints, no new product news to drive conversation. The challenge was finding a channel that could help in building awareness, driving trials, and creating loyalty — entirely within the constraints of a highly regulated environment. IPA and festivals became an opportunity for the brand to connect with the right audience and drive a meaningful connection.
The Strategic Framework
The brief was to develop an experiential activation strategy and execution plan for the festival channel — from recommended festival selection through to conceptual footprint, presence elements, and on-site activities. I built the response around four interconnected pillars.
Right Place — Festival selection wasn't driven by scale alone. Using WPP's Choreograph and a proprietary Heatmap tool drawing on over a dozen datasets, I built detailed audience profiles for Vuse's two priority segments — Trendy Aspirationals and Streetwise Pioneers — and mapped them against the cultural spaces they actually inhabited in the target cities.
Right Presence — I defined a set of experiential principles to guide the creative brief: experiences had to flex across large and small footprints, align with Vuse's ESG commitments, entertain and educate in equal measure, and build equity for the new visual identity — all while operating within strict regulatory guardrails.
Right Journey — Every activation was designed with a consumer journey that extended beyond the festival. Rather than isolated moments, each touchpoint was connected to the broader Vuse ecosystem — moving consumers from on-site trial through to CRM capture, digital engagement, and ultimately purchase and retention.
Right Measurement — The measurement framework captured four dimensions — Efficiency, Engagement, Sales, and Brand Love — with real-time reporting at events, monthly optimization, and biannual media mix modelling.
The Outcome
The strategy gave Vuse a culturally credible, legally navigable path to growth in its highest-priority markets — at a moment when most conventional routes were unavailable. By treating the festival channel as a system rather than a series of events, the framework ensured that every activation built equity, captured data, and created the conditions for long-term consumer relationships.