People knew Seattle's EMP Museum for Jimi Hendrix guitars and Death Stars and Nirvana handwritten lyrics, but they didn't know the mission had evolved to focus on all pop culture offers from gaming, fashion, and film, to music and science fiction. It was time for the name to catch up with who they had become. And it needed to be newsworthy, even though it would be the 5th name in only 10 years.
We set out to boldly name and claim the museum's pop culture identity, and tell their broader story to increase awareness. We needed to get pop culture fanatics and the local community excited to celebrate the official transformation of EMP into the Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP.
Our teaser campaign showcased rebus-like pop culture puzzles, with a simple question: Do you speak pop culture? If you can solve it, come celebrate with a free day at EMP Museum. No one knew what would happen once they got there.
Our puzzles showed up in wild postings, traditional print, massive video projections, and guerilla tactics to drive foot traffic to the free day at the museum. Once they got to the Pop Culture Party, the new name was revealed. The celebration was the biggest attendance day in the 20-year history of the museum, with more than 10,000 people streaming through the doors. The announcement secured 1.3 million impressions with a Seattle Times exclusive, and 400k+ viewership impressions through broadcast coverage on KOMO, KIRO, and KING.
Oh! And we made pop culture geeks everywhere happy.
I developed the process to produce several thousand pieces of "chewed" gum (microwaves and a cooler full of hot water on-site were involved). I worked with designers to lay out the rebus in Post-It note form, and lead its installation. I supervised (and ate) the pepperoni-based rebus. And I projected the pop-culture puzzles across the city with a mobile projection van.
Roles: R&D (gum wall, post-it notes), projectionist, production support, content capture, documentation