Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project

GTMS turns a container into a cultural nightlife hotspot for global party project

A standard shipping crate was branded and refurbished for the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project, a global marketing campaign hosted by Smirnoff vodka.

GTMS' Concept & Build team was enlisted by experiential agency RPM to build and tour the crate that visited four cities around the UK, raising awareness and encouraging engagement of consumers with the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project campaign. The crate visited London, Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow during September and October 2010.

The crate tour was promoted through local media (radio and press) and Facebook, while a three tiered Global TV campaign supported the overall project.

The crate's doors were open to the public from 15:00-22:00 and it became a box office providing consumers with free wristbands which will give them entry into a number of the city's nightlife venues that night.

Visitors were encouraged to record what they thought constitutes the best of British nightlife and what they love about their home town using a vox pop booth. By recording vox pops consumers were given a chance to win tickets to the Global and London based main events. The video diary room featured a Smirnoff branded back wall, sliding door and sound-reducing foam on the walls. Discussions on music, dance moves, DJs and fashion trends were all recorded in the video booth area, which were then shown on Facebook.

A live DJ performed on DJ decks situated at one end of the container. These decks were hooked up to the latest FeONIC® Technology Invisible Speaker system to project music to the public creating a party atmosphere. The actual walls of the shipping container became the sound projecting device.

LED strip lighting illuminated the interior and wristbands were handed out from red glowing counters promoting local nightlife. External flood lights ensured the shipping container was well lit after dark.

Dominik Short, Director at GTMS said "We were given the challenge by RPM to create a customised shipping container that could be easily transported and deployed and had to follow the global brand guidelines. This was the perfect plug and play scenario."

The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project was a global campaign that involved 14 key cities across the world. In each country residents were encouraged to tell Smirnoff what's the best of their countries nightlife to ‘fill' their crate in preparation for the 27th of November - ‘the day the world swapped nights'. Amongst others Sau Paolo swapped with Sydney, Cape Town with Berlin and London swapped with Miami, with each city hosting a party that showcased the best of their sister cities nightlife.