At the close of 2021, sales for the overall liquor industry were booming. The vodka category, however, was on a steep decline and was being outrun by the rising success of the ready-to-drink beverages brown spirits, and tequila. Absolut, once a catalyst for culture and creativity, had lost its footing in a now cluttered and ubiquitous market. A once iconic brand known for stand-out moments such as the Absolut Warhol bottle and the Sex & The City Cosmo now lacked relevance with the ever-growing gen-zenial audience.

As the world prepared to return to an IRL Coachella, Absolut pushed to create a moment to retake their position in culture. The goal; reignite a once iconic brand through a headline-worthy activation at the festival that drives relevance with their aspirational target in an authentically Absolut way. The idea needed to spark amplification and conversation well beyond the festival walls.

Absolut’s creative legacy sets a high bar for new concepts. Looking back at the progressive origins of Absolut’s historic campaign work, what is clear is the brand has always had a passion for looking forward – forging innovative ways to embrace new perspectives through art, fashion, music, and culture. The brand’s spirit had incredible synergy with the disruptive nature of Web3, and the unlimited creative experimentation in the metaverse. For a brand so bold it regularly reimagined its iconic bottle, the answer was re-imagining what it meant “to be” at Coachella. And not just to activate within the festival, but expand the experience beyond festival grounds so everyone—even fans at home without a ticket—could attend like never before. Absolut.Land was born. The virtual world’s first ticket to Coachella with mirroring experiences. A way to mix IRL concert goers with digital avatars over a very real Absolut drink.

Absolut.Land debuted as an immersive experience that blended physical and virtual worlds and blurred lines of reality to evoke curiosity and connect consumers in ground-breaking ways at the festival and in the metaverse. Media engagement positioned Absolut.Land as an equalizer, making the style, music, and cocktails of Coachella accessible to anyone (21+), anywhere, 24 hours a day. The press engine

unveiled the activation to media with tactics that demystified the metaverse. To further permeate the conversation, Absolut partnered with Susan Alexandra to create one-of-a-kind NFT wearables and Swedish House Mafia to create custom cocktail kits. Absolut’s influencer relations lent credibility and star power that appealed to media and reached a consumer audience, physically and virtually. As a brand born to mix, Absolut is about bringing the world together through shared experiences.

Bringing Absolut.Land to life in an engaging and authentic way required mixing digital craft on a new level with the application of real world touches. Knowledge of Decentraland's backend, scene building process, polygon count and land parcel real estate, and potential to build on existing interactions (like animating our own dance moves) was paramount. Research and immersion in the culture of Decentraland to uncover community trends was an added secret sauce. For example, witnessing the trend of avatars taking selfie-style screenshots on railings—yeah, it's a thing—inspired our large rooftop with railings around the perimeter where visitors took many, many rail photos. Enlisting real world creators like cult-favorite handbag and jewelry designer, Susan Alexandra, to 3D sculpt fashion accessories gave guests much desired virtual swag to flock to. But it wasn’t enough to give away meta-merch, to generate buzz and excitement around the Decentraland community we built accessories with rarity levels in mind – the sunglasses, for example, reached a rarity level of “Mythic” with only 10 pairs minted. Bringing it back to Absolut’s iconic products (sculpting our digital homebase in homage of the timeless Absolut bottle, with some Web3 polish), brand heritage and passion points guided every experience and surprise moments like Absolut bottle collectibles hidden throughout the space, product promos and even virtual drinks that could be vended and sent to users homes IRL through beverage delivery partners. We would be remiss to not include a banging soundtrack. So we enlisted Coachella headliner Swedish House Mafia to join us in the space and stream their latest album, making every track immediately available to audiences around the world. And if it wasn't enough to enjoy the experience from home, avatars were able to seek out and access secret portals that “teleported” fans to Coachella Valley for IRL VIP treatment.

260,000 visitors to the Absolut Coachella tent

30,000 meta visits over two festival weekends (a high for branded Decentraland experiences)

1.5+ billion earned media impressions over 6 days of Coachella

108+ million social media impressions; 12% follower growth

90,000 anti-gravity dances; 11,000 shaker clicks; 34,000 vending machine clicks

Participants from over 100 countries

20 minutes average time in experience

Record for Decentraland’s longest dance party (12+ hours)

$450,000+ in sales over the two festival weekend (1.5x more than in 2019)

Over 4,000 orders on Drizly (across 36 states)

480+ Media Placements

8X more hashtag mentions than the next closest brand/celebrity driven experience in Decentraland