The Memory Room
Immersive Experiential
Contribution: Concept, creative direction, copywriting
Imagine returning to your childhood bedroom and finding every detail just as you left it. That was the basic premise of an activation about the power of memory.
The challenge
GMR wanted to position itself as an experiential marketing agency that can create and evoke memories. To tell that story, we had an empty room at the 4se Conference in NYC.
Our approach: Make it immersive and magical
We decided, let's not just get people to think about memory. Let's help them experience a memory inside our space. We built a teenager's bedroom, circa the mid-1980s to late-1990s, the era when most of our guests came of age. We couldn't claim this was “your” bedroom, since no two people share the same childhood experience. But the hope was, if we crammed enough strategic and authentic details inside, there would be something that would resonate. We filled the room with things to see, hear, touch, smell and even taste. There were games to play, activities to join, Easter Eggs to discover. It was stuffed. Messy, even.
How it went: Pretty rad, to be honest
When you go to a business conference, you're not exactly expecting to find a child's bedroom next to the coffee bar. We weren't sure how people would react.
When the event opened, people filed into the room, marveled and laughed. They played Super Mario Bros., snapped Polaroid photos and snagged Big League Chew. They told us, “I’ve been in this bedroom before” or “I loved that toy when I was a kid.” One guest borrowed the Walkman, laid down on the bed and chilled out, looking very much like a teenager himself. In the end, the room didn’t explain every detail from the GMR research report about how to create a memorable event. But we didn't need it to. The bedroom made people experience the power of memory for themselves—and inspired more than a few folks to give GMR a second look.