We helped SOMOS ABQ make a dream come true after the pandemic.
SOMOS launched in Albuquerque in 2017. It was the coolest, brightest festival in ABQ and for one day, celebrated everything we loved about our city. Lavendr launched in 2018, and in our early days we decided that when we finally got to the point where SOMOS wanted work with us, that mean we had made it.
So you can consider 2022 as the year we officially made it. The year we became a real ad agency. Let the record show.
The Road to SOMOS 2022
Since the debut event in 2017, SOMOS had built momentum over 3 years, and they were gearing up for a 2020 event. Welp — that event didn’t happen. I don’t need to explain why, you know why. As New Mexico got control over the pandemic over the years following (in part due to some incredible public service announcements, I might humbly add), SOMOS was ready for a re-launch in 2022, with us by their side to handle their online and social media marketing.
But there was a challenge. Like many things during the pandemic, the momentum of SOMOS had slowed down. Our job was to take the remaining brand equity (which was still substantial, just very few people expected a 2022 SOMOS) and push it as far as it could go. The challenge didn’t stop there though — although the pandemic was mostly under control, huge crowds were still a concern. To combat this, SOMOS was spread into micro-events over the course of 10 days in different parts of Albuquerque, with a bigger festival dubbed the “SOMOS DREAMGLOW” at the end of the 10 day span.
This was really exciting — a whole week of SOMOS! But, it did mean that we didn’t have to just advertise one event, but 12 smaller events while still getting enough people to the larger event at the end of the week. Oh boy. Time to buckle down.
The Work Begins
We knew we wanted to iterate the SOMOS brand to have it’s own visual identity for 2022, and everybody was aligned on a trippy, ethereal look to lean into the ~ d r e a m ~ aesthetic. We took lots of stock footage of water colors mixing together, blurred it, and made it the core of our assets. We put it behind the logos, we overlaid it on pictures with a negative filter, everything! And we think that caught the eye of lots of people — it was something that was visually stunning and that was never seen from SOMOS before.
We fully embraced the dream aesthetic for the entirety of the two months we spent promoting the event, developing a huge set of photos, videos, social media posts, newsletters, and graphics. We designed an equally trippy website where people could find the entire calendar of events and buy their tickets. And, we put it all together into a media kit that any media partner or collaborator could utilize to push the brand even further. You can view the set of content at either lavendr.co/portfolio/SOMOS-2022, or by visiting @somosabq on Instagram.
The design paired especially well with the lineup. Headlined by Big Gigantic with support by TOKiMONSTA and Hannah Wants meant the vibes were guaranteed to be dancey, psychedelic, and ethereal. Beyond the musical artists, SOMOS makes a point to bring together an interdisciplinary mix of art to support the festival, including acrobatics, sculpturists, culinary artists (aka food trucks), art vendors, and more. We even had the pleasure of creating an installation ourselves! Right near the stage, we put up a photo backdrop bringing a lavender and green vibe where people could take a pic with their SOMOS crew, grab some fit checks, or just look at how pretty it is.
The Results
In the end, we ended up bringing in over 1500 new followers to SOMOS’s platforms, with a total reach of over 541,000 and nearly 7,000 paid link clicks. It’s hard to tell exact numbers, but we expect there were over 5,000 SOMOS attendees at the 2022 events, which was a very strong number for the first event back after a 3 year hiatus. And for some qualitative analysis — the event was amazing! The music was great, the art was fresh, and everybody seemed to have a really great time.
SOMOS is, and will always be, the client that made us feel like we were really doing something, and for that Lavendr is forever grateful. And we can’t wait to celebrate with our Albuquerque family at SOMOS in the future.
p.s. Check out this little video we made about the experience!
