Imagine yourself at the biggest, most competitive cybersecurity tradeshow of the year and you see a booth with nothing written on it.
In the midst of 36k attendees, you see a black-and-white branded booth with nothing but a welcome mat saying ‘START HERE’.
This is the experience that Bluetext designed for RSA® Conference 2020.
It was the most intricate, fast-moving, and exhilaratingly creative project I’ve personally been a part of. And it was a massive success, exceeding the client’s expectations by 29% while remaining 20% under budget.
Turning a Concept into an Augmented Reality
Designing a series of virtual tunnels printed on the walls around the booth space, like portals radiating in different directions, we physically and mentally immersed the user in a vulnerable cyber scenario.
Correlating to VPN encrypted connections, the creative foundation of the AR experience was inspired by the idea of virtual tunnels, with each printed tunnel doubling as an AR marker.
We designed a custom app for the experience, bringing the entire adventure to life. Using only a mobile device, users were able to interact with each marker, revealing pieces of the campaign content upon completion of the AR task.
On the crowded trade show floor, the booth with its vibrant-green vortexes enticed passing attendees to visit and engage with the mysterious campaign.
The augmented reality booth was a science project.
We made an app. We made custom Vans sneakers. We built a gamified experience with radical visuals and sound effects. It was awesome!
Over one month, the Bluetext paid media team drove over 6.8MM impressions and 150K clicks for only 68% of the provided budget, resulting in a 500% increase in site traffic and a bajillion% increase in client awe.
How did we pull this off on time, under budget, and above expectation?!
Two and a half months away from the nation’s biggest cybersecurity conference, we kicked off an Augmented Reality project with a startup that had no branding, no messaging, no website, and a c-suite in flux.
All creative hands on deck. Bring a Sisyphean sense of humor.
We’re in DC, the client in Dallas, the conference in San Francisco, and the booth fabricator in Denver — we had to engineer and test the interactivity without ever being in the booth.
At one point we were mapping booth specs on the floor with duct tape, turning out the lights for our entire office (during the work day which was…disruptive), and projecting an AR-marker jpeg onto the wall to see if the whole thing actually worked
It worked. It all worked. The whole team knocked it out of the park.
Cutting Room Floor
