How Hipstr's Innovative Brand Activation Strategy Drove Unprecedented Engagement for IKEA

At Hipstr we are proud to be a part of weddings, corporate events, and even movie premieres. But did you know we also curate experiential marketing experiences for brands large and small? 

Just recently our good friends at IKEA came to us with an exciting experiential marketing campaign they wanted us to be a part of. As part of their Grad Bash, IKEA wanted a way for grads and their families to capture the joyful moment of shopping for college dorm room essentials with some super cool technology-driven activations.

Of course, we said yes. After all who doesn’t love a challenge? Here’s how it went… 

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The Challange 

As with any event this size, we knew the stakes were going to be high. We were excited to work with the IKEA team to exceed every expectation they had. 

1. 🏙️ Multiple City Locations: From Burbank, California to Orlando, Florida, and every IKEA location in between – IKEA needed interactive photo experiences in all 50 of their locations on the same day… at the same time! 
2. ✅ Easy Set Up: Just like planning any multi-city event, each IKEA store manager was going to be pretty busy the day of the event. With other vendors to keep track of during the event, IKEA wanted the photo booth element to be super easy to set up and require no babysitting. Our Hipstr Hosts went to all 50 locations and set up the booths for the IKEA teams. And with our user-friendly photo booths, guests were able to operate each booth themselves. Easy-peasy. 

The Mission 

With our super creative in-house team and our operations leaders, we were able to create a total custom multi-city photo booth activation for the team at IKEA. 

1. 🤩 Sleek Setups: With each IKEA store being set up differently, the team knew that sleek, portable photo booths were the best choice. With our HALO photo booth, each store was able to set up its brand engagement with whatever backdrop they wanted. Curating a very custom experience for each store management team. 

3. 🥳 Custom Border Overlays: Obviously this was a huge campaign and we wanted IKEA to get all the engagement they could out of each image. Our team designed custom border overlays that included the IKEA logo as well as the event name: GRAD BASH. 
4. 🤩 Instant Sharing: With all this incredible user-generated content, it needed to be easily shareable. Each photo booth used was integrated with instant sharing that guests could simply text to themselves, airdrop, email, or share instantly on any social media channel. 
5. 🤯Event Metrics: Engagement is great for any business, but knowing how much and in what form is even more important. With our photo booths, IKEA and our team at Hipstr were able to track social media metrics during and after the event. 

The Skyrocketing Results 

Across the board the Grad Bash at IKEA was a success. The guests enjoyed each photo booth and based on the engagement numbers – they shared the heck out of how much they loved the experience. 

1. ✅ SMS: 2,978
2. ✅ Share Page Opens: 4,627
3. ✅ Total Photos Captured: 3,370
4. ✅ Emails Sent: 259
5. ✅ Facebook Shares: 16
6. ✅ X Shares: 4
7. ✅ Instagram Shares: 44
8. ✅ Downloads: 1,328
9. ✅ Airdrop: 506
10. ✅ Reach: 342,832
11. ✅ Impressions: 2,978

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Total Interactions: 1,510,201 🤯

Hipstr Business Magic 

So the next time you think Hipstr is just wedding photo booths… think again. We love working with brands big and small and those brands wanting to do something crazy. We love crazy. We love creativity. And we would love to help you plan your next brand activation, in one city, or several! Contact our team today for a custom quote and advice on what photo booth would be right for your event.