HP wins at millennial marketing: the Lab

Summer is a strategic time for HP as back-to-school time is right around the corner and they wanted to target their audience of Millennials. With the knowledge that millennials want to engage with brands in an interactive and authentic way, they sponsored the 2016 Panorama Festival in New York City on Randall’s Island Park. The festival aimed to connect creative industries like art and music with technology.

HP partnered with The Verge to create “The Lab” which was a brand experience “playground” at the event and also had created the HP lounge. The outside of The Lab was wired with generative projection-mapping which displayed interactive content. On the inside, there was an art exhibition space and a virtual reality theater (360-degrees). In the art exhibition area, they had eight immersive art installations that were powered by HP. As for the HP lounge, HP devices were available so attendees could get hands on with the products. They could, for example, use Sprout to create and print their own temporary tattoos on site.

This was an effective campaign because it was light on the branding and more about providing consumers with a hands-on experience of the brand’s products. It was a great example of showing instead of telling. They aimed to capture the hearts, minds and trust from their audience, and it appears they did so as the Panorama Festival resulted in HP earning 21 million social media impressions and 438,000 engagements.