Experiential at Christmas

Andy Dixon - September 2017

With theatrical roots in the sparkle of pantomime and past history working with the Christmas decorations specialists James Glancy Design, Scene2’s Creative Directors Andy Dixon and Susan Walker have over 20 years experience in designing, building and installing eye-catching schemes. This includes grottos with a twist, interactive sampling stands and giant bauble displays.

In this blog, Scene2 shares 5 of our favourite experiential Christmas campaigns to serve as inspiration for planning your own.

1. John Lewis – “Buster The Boxer” Christmas TV ad Instore Experiential & VR Installations

John Lewis Christmas 2016 - In-store experiential

2016 saw John Lewis take their famous Christmas campaign to new levels of customer engagement with the use of Virtual Reality and an experiential in-store experience in 12 stores across the UK. Working alongside Pretty Green as their production partner, Scene2 is very proud to be part of this magical campaign.

Scene2’s brief was to recreate the experience of the TV advert using Virtual Reality technology via Oculus Rift.  We built a themed retail space that could be fully merchandised by the John Lewis team. Named “Buster’s Garden”, you could see, experience and interact with all the animals from the TV advert.

John Lewis - Christmas 2016 - In-store experiential

2. Cadburys – “Advent Trucks” Christmas Campaign

cadburys advent trucks

In 2015, Cadbury put £10 million behind its Christmas campaign and created the biggest ever advent calendar. 24 trucks. 24 doors. Opening daily in 24 different locations. Bringing joyful festive surprises to the nation on the countdown to Christmas. #cadvent

3. The Carlsberg Christmas Tree

#IfCarlsbergDid…..In December 2015, our beer of choice Carlsberg owned Christmas with a 27 foot tall Christmas tree erected overnight on London’s South Bank.

But this was no ordinary Christmas tree. This particular Christmas tree was decorated with beer bottle baubles and had a tap for dispensing FREE refreshing Carlsberg. The baubles that adorned the tree also doubled up as beer glasses. This great idea doubled up as sampling and outdoor experiential marketing.

4. Evian – Living Young (post) Christmas Experiential Campaign

The more you play – the more the snow falls. During the January grey days of 2013, Scene2 worked alongside Cake & Havas to banish the back to work blues & get Londoners living young again post-Christmas holidays.

Creating an interactive, kinetic experience with an Evian branded playground, Scene2 built and installed a swing set and seesaw into 2 London locations. A perfect, wintry setting for a Christmas campaign.

Evian playground

5. Covent Garden Christmas Deluxe

Covent Garden claimed their 2007 as the best-ever Christmas experience for visitors, to this iconic London landmark. The vast market space featured handmade decorations adorning the walls of the market building created by film set designers. There were 12 weeks of performance programming including the amazing Heliosphere, StrangeFruit from Australia and the Gay Men’s Choir. There was also a foodie Christmas night market.

Covent Garden Christmas

Feeling inspired?

Whatever your plan is for an Experiential Christmas, Scene2 are the experts.

We’ve created everything from large scale shopping centre decoration schemes, (under the direction of Paul Dart @ James Glancy Design) to retail and window displays in Selfridges, Harrods and flagship stores in Oxford Street, London. Giant scale is always our speciality from festive building wraps to themed sampling stands and bespoke interactive grotto concepts.

christmas - shopping centres

Christmas - Grey Goose Selfridges window

Christmas - HMV windows

Christmas - Winsor Bishop Building Wrap

Experiential Christmas is high on the agenda in 2017 with brands and venues looking to enhance the Christmas feel-good feeling, which will translate into sales without overpowering commercialisation.

#BeDifferent