Desperados has a single-minded strategy: in the midst of increasing pressure from competitor brands, they have set themselves a challenge to become the most iconic drink for 18-25 year olds across the world.

Their point of differentiation is to position themselves in a specific moment – parties. And, recognising that you can have music without a party but you can’t have a party without music, they’ve made music – specifically electronic music of all genres – a part of their DNA.

Building credibility and distinctiveness in this highly competitive area – music, parties and clubbing – means authenticity is vital. So Desperados has committed to ‘Acts not Ads’ - creating genuine, epic party experiences (‘Acts’) that are then turned into their global communication assets, distributed principally via owned social media channels, as well as the buzz generated by invited influencers.

They’re a brand with wild experimentation at their core: before Desperados, no-one had mixed beer and tequila. That attitude lives on in their approach to the world. Their strategic platform is ‘Wild Experimentation in Music’: a bold promise to remix the rules, shake things up and create epic world-firsts in music, clubbing and party culture.

Quite a creative ask.

Not least because, as brands continue to invest in securing their place within the experience economy, the creative stakes are high and getting ever higher. Social media has enabled the world’s most incredible experiences, which may only have been experienced by a few, to be witnessed by millions. We may not have been to Coachella or the Color Factory, but we are aware of their reputation and have looked enviously at the social posts. And with each view, our collective expectation is raised.

In today’s experience economy, inflation is at an all-time high.

Which meant that, in 2018, we really did have to create the most eye-popping, jaw-dropping party experience that would form the next ‘Act’. And, although the budget was not small, the audacious nature of the ask and the ambitious nature of the solution meant that every penny had to be carefully invested.

Especially as we were attempting something that had never been done before…

As expectations get ever higher, our idea was to create an experience that went deeper than ever before.

Introducing Deep House: the world’s deepest dance floor.

In essence, we set out to create a truly wild party experiment that would translate into unmissable world-class content to share across the globe. And at the centre of that live experience were 80 specially-invited influencers: party aficionados who are regularly courted by brands eager to show that their relationship to party and music is the best and the most authentic.

It was to be a spectacular and immersive underwater clubbing experience, the likes of which had never been seen before.

Our first challenge was to find the right venue; somewhere that would not only enable us to create this unique experience but also allow us to push our concept to its limits and thus heighten the social value of the experience to Desperados. Our creatively-minded logistics experts outdid themselves by finding and securing what is officially the world’s deepest pool as our venue.

To be precise, the Y-40 pool, in Padova city, near Venice, offers a staggering depth of 42.15 metres. So now we could say that not only would this be the world’s most immersive underwater party but also the world’s deepest underwater party.

It was at this point, however, that the real work began. What was creatively possible at such depths? How should we get guests in and out of the pool (only a limited number could enter at any one time)? What about the experience when you’re not in the pool? And, top of the list, could we ensure that this was 100% safe for everyone, satisfying the stringent requirements of health and safety, as well as risk-averse insurance companies.

Despite the very real constraints and considerations, our creative team accepted the challenge and pushed every boundary possible in experience design, working hand in hand with our production and technical teams to ensure that bold ideas became a spectacular reality. Every moment was carefully engineered to guarantee a thrilling experience for our guests, as well as iconic content for their social media and our content teams.

As you can imagine, good communication and detailed liaison with the Y-40 venue were also critical in determining whether our ideas were feasible, right through to on-site activation of the experience. We only had one chance to get it right, after all.

On the dance floor the rules are different, and on our underwater dance floor, this was doubly so. We took the elements of a regular nightclub dance floor – music, lights, DJs, performers – and submerged them for to craft a unique underwater experience.

The music was piped directly into underwater SeaTREK helmets, as well as pumped out through an underwater sound system. Performers swam above, below and all around our participants, while international DJs Peggy Gou and Artwork performed in an underwater tunnel that ran through the centre of the pool. Lasers, lights and glow sticks transformed the pool with dazzling visual effects that were refracted and amplified by the millions of bubbles we injected into the scene.

What’s more, we could create experiences that no-other dance floor could offer, like UV ‘reverse rainfall’ rising from the deep and, for the bravest, the chance to swim out over the pulsing-LED-illuminated 42 metre-drop of the Y-40, with a Desperados logo shining from the abyss.

This audacious party was filled with firsts:

• Our collaboration with leading audio engineers enabled us to find ways of optimising the SeaTREK helmets in order to keep the music going underwater.

• A sound, light and choreographed underwater dance experience that our performers had never heard of before, let alone been a part of.

• An underwater rigging and venue makeover that turned a diving pool into a unique clubbing location.

Simply put, we pushed the boundaries of what was possible; inventing new solutions along the way to create a never-been-seen-before party experience – the world’s deepest dancefloor - that made waves around the world.

Although it’s a cliché, this truly was a team effort. To create something as audacious as this required a rock-solid, cross-discipline, inter-agency team.

That team was the Desperados Tribe: a group of agencies working jointly across all areas of the project with a shared goal of making Deep House an unadulterated success across all touchpoints and channels.

Deep House was Desperados’ most viewed, shared, liked and talked-about campaign ever. As well as a truly banging party and hugely successful Earned Media figures (826m global reach), the experience was the source for some amazing content that captured, and kept attention.

During the campaign period (September to December 2018), the content collectively gathered 61m views and showed improved relevancy on the previous year’s SkyFest activation with an average video completion rate of 53%, compared to Desperados SkyFest’s 48%.

And the great content was reflected in a 981% increase in brand engagement (comments, likes, shares etc) during the weekend of Deep House itself, compared to the previous month.

This content success story contributed to real business results, helping Desperados grew by 13% as its category shrank by 0.2% globally.

Desperados - Desperados - Deep House

CREDITS

Oli Cottam

Caspar Mason

Jemma Ryan

Suzi Thrift

Ben Pickering

Joe Frisina

Lauren DuMont

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