Hoegaarden witbier brews the progression of event marketing into a new paradigm – An immersive brand theatre conceptualized by Torre – a Shanghainese creative director

SHANGHAI, Dec. 22, 2023- Event marketing has a rich history tracing back to the 1800s – the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, brands like Wrigley’s, Pabst, and Cracker Jack debuted their brands and products to the world with huge awareness gained.

Into the 1930s, Oscar Mayer’s hotdogger vehicle spread out the brand awareness massively. Into the 1970s, the Pepsi challenge took place at malls, shopping centers, and other public locations around the States in the form of a single blind taste test as part of the ongoing Cola wars. The awareness driving was huge, and the results leaned toward a consensus that Pepsi was preferred by more Americans.

It is said that event marketing gave birth to brand activations, and it gradually evolves into brand experiences with the time moving on to the 2000s. When Fendi’s "the first fashion show visible from the moon" took place on the Great Wall of China, the impact was beyond culture and marked in the history of event marketing. Into the 2010s and 2020s, more and more great experiences coming along with new technologies have been curated by big names from automobile, fashion, alcohol and other industries.

In 2023, Hoegaarden witbier brews the progression of event marketing into a new paradigm – an immersive brand theatre that filtered out a brand challenge. Let’s get into it!

THE CONTEXT
For years, witbier fans enjoy their Hoegaarden moments, slow down and unwind, but hardly did they know about the brand’s Belgian heritage. So the experiential brief is to put on a masterclass to convey the high quality from Belgium, and skip the boring "show & tell" cliché for the target audience.

THE STRATEGY
Hoegaarden has a profound history with a lot brand stories. It’s interesting to explore the rich heritage rather than being told, so the strategy is to embark on a time-travel adventure to the very village in Belgium in 1445, portray Hoegaarden’s legacy via an immersive theatre.

THE IDEA & EXECUTION
To boost the theatre ambiance & Belgian heritage, Beijing Belgium Embassy former site is chosen as the venue. The brand takes out 3 of its milestones in history and vivifies the stories via theatre play with characters and interactive scripts. So the guests become part of it instead of just watching, and experience those moments as if they were there. The finale brings everyone back to present with a curtain call that captivates them again, so to extend the immersive experience to the brew master’s tasting session.

The guest journey features a Belgian estaminet arrival to portray the brand’s unwind lifestyle. After a welcome drink, a parchment roll is given to start the time-travel adventure to the very village where the brand was born… Into 1445, the guests and the Hoegaarden monks discovered the combination of orange peel and coriander to brew the legendary wheat beer. Into 1965, the guests along with Hoegaarden’s legend Pierre Celis preserved the recipe in his milk shed, and revived Hoegaarden witbier. Into 1985, the guests experienced the fire and the reborn. Back to 2023, the immersive theatre comes to its finale along brew masters session and curtain call.

THE RESULT
The entire experiential campaign gained a total 361 million media impression, top 1 searched witbier brand on Red Social Media (one of the top Chinese social media & e-commerce platforms), and 58.8% increase in witbier market penetration on target audience from Red Social Media.

THE ONE BEHIND THE SCENE
Torre is the founder of KRUSH STUDIOS. (www.krush.studio) The studio’s name comes from his born crush on creative and rush. He connects with a group of creative and ambitious marketing veterans to curate innovative experiences and set new paradigms in evoking senses that resonate. KRUSH STUDIOS hep prestigious brands to stand out from content-crammed world by linking with target audiences in insightful ways with "glocal" relevancy and distinct brand persona.

Torre is an open-minded entrepreneur with passion, a creative problem solver. He has been working over 15 years in marketing communication and brand experiences, covering the area of shows, creative, strategy, account, content, operation, producer, technical functions in his current career. While spearheading popular events and campaigns across Asia and Europe, he challenges his own experience to unlearn from his past expertise.

He viscerally believes that marketing is about values and to solve problems for the brand and target audiences. He envisions and iterates extraordinary contents & experiences that evoke senses – changing consumers to evangelists for brand excellence.

He’s not going to rest on his laurels as his born passion and curiosity drives him forward in full speed. We wish to hear more progression and phenomenal cases from his work in the future. Keep going Torre!