Year
2020
Client
OnePlus - T-Mobile
Category
Experiential Marketing
Product Duration
3 Months
With pandemic restrictions ruling out traditional launch events, OnePlus and T-Mobile still needed a headline-grabbing way to unveil the OnePlus 8T+ 5G and dramatize T-Mobile’s far-reaching network. The ask: create a single stunt that would excite hardcore tech fans, showcase 5 G coverage across the U.S., and drive opt-in leads, all without gathering crowds. In short, we had to replace the usual splashy keynote with an experience memorable enough to break through launch-season noise yet safe enough for late-2020 realities.
We tapped into gamers’ and early adopters’ love of discovery and designed “Go Farther”, a phygital scavenger hunt. Three minimalist OnePlus pop-up “stores” were hidden in remote corners of Montana, Georgia and up-state New York, locations chosen to mirror T-Mobile’s 5 G reach. Fans followed cryptic social hints to an interactive map where every guess was a chance to win devices and swag, turning network coverage into a real-world quest. The rallying cry “Go Farther” fused the phone’s power with the carrier’s promise, while the deliberately cinematic remote settings gave the campaign social-media brag value.
In about 3 months, we orcchestrated logistics for three 20-foot glass pop-ups, a dynamic WebGL map, and real-time leaderboard APIs that updated thousands of guesses per hour. We partnered with experiential agency The Bait Shoppe for on-site builds, shot drone-level teaser footage, and rolled out a content cadence of teaser tweets, clue drops and live location reveals. All assets were optimized for quick swappable copy so regional T-Mobile teams could localize messages without re-rendering. The seven-day activation ran seamlessly at an average 1,900 log-ins per hour and 41,000 guesses per day.
Go Farther” delivered more than hype, it generated 319,200 fully opted-in participants, captured first-party data for both brands and drove a measurable lift in OnePlus 8T+ 5G pre-orders. The campaign earned Adweek’s Experiential Campaign of the Year and set a new benchmark for launch creativity under quarantine. Internally, OnePlus NA marketing leadership cited the program as proof of our creative team's ability to “break the barriers of the standard digital event".
