SITUATION
When Google launched its Google Pixel smart phone, they knew they were signing up for a challenge. Up against a competitor who is notoriously good at resonating with artists, Google Pixel decided to do that and then more. They created a phone with limitless creative features, which they marketed to artists and then built up a community around it called #teampixel. While Google was not the first to create an ambassador program, Google Pixel was the first put forth a program that actively engages and cares for their artists. All communities need outlets and reasons to come together in order to flourish and in 2019, Google Pixel was searching for the best way to maintain the authentic connection and vibrance that they worked so hard to establish.
SOLUTION
No strangers to community-building events, we decided to take a Yeah Field Trip approach to solving this problem in the most literal sense. We hosted the summit at Yeah Field Trip. We brought the Google Pixel Summit to co-exist with our 2019 Yeah Field Trip festival in Marfa, Texas.
Inspired by “companion planting”. Horticulturists say that plants grow better when they’re grown alongside other plants. The idea is called “companion planting” and it inspired our approach to community growing. We took the young #teampixel community and planted it right next to our older Yeah Field Trip community.
Product-considered programming. We made sure to provide programming and activities that would provide context for capturing content. Each part of the day was created to consider the thought, “how would this look if someone were documenting this on their Google Pixel phone?”. The result was an average of 6 Instagram grid posts (thats around 2 posts per day) shared per person (each person had an average following of ~65k followers).
Influencer impact. What happens when you have 50 #teampixel influencers walking around with their Google Pixel phones at Yeah Field Trip? Two communities merge. The impact from the Google Pixel community spread into the YFT community, which provided more than the anticipated ROI for Google Pixel, due to the organic growth of the “companion planting” technique.
RESULTS