OATH Launch & Marketing Festival
Mike Brown, VP, Creative Director @ Superfly Presents
Following their merger of AOL and Yahoo in 2017 under the new house of brands, OATH, Verizon wanted to gather and inspire 2300 previous competitors now moving forward as collaborators. Superfly partnered with OATH to envision, design, produce and manage FORCE17: a 2-day launch and marketing festival that would bring the collective to life day-to-night across stage programming, activities, experiences and entertainment, while driving cultural and commercial progress for the future of all the brands involved.
As VP, Creative Director at Superfly, I lead the creative team from concept through development to completion across the creative vision, placemaking/experiential strategies, site planning, and environmental design and decor for the festival campus, event spaces and structures, graphics, signage and way-finding.
"This was a massive undertaking and one of the first of its kind in both execution and scale. You nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. And please know that the thousands of people you lit up this week will be contagious carriers of culture around the world. How amazingly awesome is that?!?!?" -- Tim Armstrong, former CEO, OATH.
The Oath Brand Mark had inspired a new visual system to integrate all of the owned brands in the portfolio. We leveraged this as the primary organizing principle for the creative vision, campus mapping, structures, signage and way-finding.
We transformed the Adams County Fairground outside of Denver, CO with a distinct cultural placemaking strategy. Leveraging the power of gathering through mapping, design, adjacencies and circulation, we re-imagined conventional sales/marketing meetings through the lens of festival experiences where both intentional and accidental gathering sparks profound human connection.
Leveraging dome structures, illuminated lawn-spheres, shade structures and vibrant way-finding, we created a visual language unique to the OATH brand to shape the campus, programming and experiences that re-imagined standard company off-site gatherings. And the impact was palpable over the 2 days, day to night, as these 2000+ colleagues gathered, engaged, connected and inspired each other.
The center of the campus was marked with 30’ high mirrored sculpture - The Burst - that represented the unifying force of previous competitors coming together under a singular new entity. The totem was a meeting place day-to-night and sparked pride in gathering and belonging.
Sales and Marketing conference by day. Vibrant music festival at night. Live concerts, food and games transformed the campus at night and supercharged the culture of commerce for all of the attendees.
Cultivating human connection through strategy, storytelling, design and innovation.