Similar to the music industry, the energy drinks market is a crowded and competitive space in which it’s almost impossible to make it to the top. Red Bull’s ubiquitous cultural presence, and Monster’s huge global footprint means there isn’t a lot of limelight left for any of the many challengers.

Far from an actual rockstar, Rockstar Energy was lacking awareness, relevance, and was rarely top of mind - especially at the point of purchase. After years of inconsistent communications, most people didn’t know what it was, and the ones that did, didn’t know what it stood for.

It was time for change.

Rockstar was in need of a big moment to reconnect with an evolving audience mindset. In order to cut through a crowded category, it needed to be innovative, entertaining, and fresh. The goal was to drive cultural relevance by creating a meaningful association with music.

To match our audience’s mindset, and increasing desire for fun in the face of toxic hustle culture, we developed a new creative platform: Press Play. This positioned the brand as the provider of the emotional and physical lift our audience needed in transitional moments, to help them Press Play on the things they love.

To bring this idea to life, we partnered with the world’s biggest music platform, Spotify, to create the first ever multiverse concert experience on the platform, with one of the UK’s most entertaining and chart-topping artists out: Stormzy. Users could switch seamlessly between 5 different worlds and 5 different Stormzys – from a real life Stormzy on stage to a virtual Stormzy performing inside a Street Fighter-inspired game – simply by tapping their screen. Each world was a representation of our audience’s interests, further amplifying the emotional lift they were looking for.

As mentioned above, from our in-depth qual research, we found that there was a new breed of energy drink consumer who lived more for fun, pleasure, and enjoyment - prioritising the stuff they loved. They were tired of toxic hustle culture and letting the “joyless grind” of everyday life drain their energy, leaving them feeling flat and unable to enjoy the shared moments they truly live for.

This was especially felt at the end of the working day when switching from what they “had to do” to what they “wanted to do”. In those moments, they weren’t just looking for functional energy, but also for an emotional mood lift to ensure they don’t miss out on the things they care about.

So while the rest of the category was talking about hustling, grinding and performance, we positioned Rockstar as the antidote to the joyless grind and the enabler of play.

On Friday, 21st July at 5pm, as people were ready to unplug from work, we hosted the first-ever multiverse concert experience on Spotify, featuring not 1 but 5 different Stormzys, in 5 immersive worlds.

In ‘City Nights’, Stormzy performed against mesmerising neon-lit nightscapes, creating an electrifying performance. Drawing inspiration from his love of gaming, the ‘Gaming’ world immersed fans in scenes inspired by popular action-adventure games. The 'Abstract' world showcased a striking silhouette of Stormzy against colourful backdrops, amplifying the energy through artful settings. Finally, the 'Explore' world transported viewers to see the global artist take the stage in awe-inspiring supernatural landscapes.

We created this experience by capturing Stormzy performing live, we then recreated the performance in a motion capture studio – with Stormzy serving as his own body double.

We matched each moment from the original performance move for move, angle for angle before using the data to recreate his performance in Unreal Engine – developing 4 more unique worlds, 4 more Stormzy avatars, and ultimately, 4 additional versions of the concert. We developed 21 stages across these five worlds, crafted with details that drew inspiration from our audience’s interests.

With our 5 different versions of the gig, we allowed users to switch seamlessly between the 5 different worlds without skipping a beat – from the man in the flesh to a gaming world Stormzy – the camera angles, his body position, and the audio remaining perfectly in sync throughout.

Across six key markets, we delivered an experience that was:

Immersive

● First ever multiverse concert experience on Spotify

Innovative

● First-of-its-kind digital content experience on Spotify

Engaging

● 187,000 unique concerts created

● 5x average dwell time vs previous Spotify activations

● +207% more views of the experience than similar campaigns in the same period.

● 19MM views & 32MM listens across the campaign with % View Through Rate /Listen Through Rate significantly above Spotify norms

● 14.9MM of those were 100% views

● 1bn+ PR impressions

Effective

● We saw up to 15.9% increase in brand awareness (vs +5.1% benchmark), 14.2% increase in purchase intent (vs +1.4% benchmark), 14.9% increase in brand favorability (vs +2.3% benchmark), and 15.5% increase in brand association with music