Concept // Production // Design
We brought a real-life unicorn to the biggest startup event of the year.
Challenge
Harmonic is a startup platform that utilises cutting-edge AI to connect investors with potential investments. This year, they set us a challenge: to come up with a disruptive guerilla campaign targeting the Slush 2024 Investor Day at the Cable Factory in Helsinki, Finland.
Solution
Unicorns have long been a symbol of success in the startup world. The term refers to privately held startup companies with valuations exceeding $1 billion. We decided that the unicorn symbol had all the visual potential we needed to create a spectacle and immediately got to work on developing a disruptive showcase outside of the event venue with no traditional media spend.
First, we launched a highly targeted poster campaign around the most popular hotels in the city, with copy specifically crafted to generate a fear-of-missing-out among investors. Then, with custom Harmonic puffer jackets to ensure the US team were prepared for the Finnish winter, we kicked off the main event.
Enter: the Harmonicunicorn
With guidance from Animal Welfare Finland, we collaborated with a local stables to bring out a real-life unicorn to Slush. As investors headed to the Cable Factory, they were met with a knight in shining armour (literally) and white stallion donning a custom-built unicorn horn.
Result
The event was a huge success: drawing significant crowds and connecting the Harmonic team with a range of new investors across the event. With hundreds of photographs taken of the activation, organic posts on X started popping up within a matter of hours. Next, Finland’s largest newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) showed up and soon our unicorn was in the press. As far as guerilla marketing is concerned, there are few greater markers for a successful concept.
Concept // Production // Design
We brought a real-life unicorn to the biggest startup event of the year.
Challenge
Harmonic is a startup platform that utilises cutting-edge AI to connect investors with potential investments. This year, they set us a challenge: to come up with a disruptive guerilla campaign targeting the Slush 2024 Investor Day at the Cable Factory in Helsinki, Finland.
Solution
Unicorns have long been a symbol of success in the startup world. The term refers to privately held startup companies with valuations exceeding $1 billion. We decided that the unicorn symbol had all the visual potential we needed to create a spectacle and immediately got to work on developing a disruptive showcase outside of the event venue with no traditional media spend.
First, we launched a highly targeted poster campaign around the most popular hotels in the city, with copy specifically crafted to generate a fear-of-missing-out among investors. Then, with custom Harmonic puffer jackets to ensure the US team were prepared for the Finnish winter, we kicked off the main event.
Enter: the Harmonic unicorn
With guidance from Animal Welfare Finland, we collaborated with a local stables to bring out a real-life unicorn to Slush. As investors headed to the Cable Factory, they were met with a knight in shining armour (literally) and white stallion donning a custom-built unicorn horn.
Result
The event was a huge success: drawing significant crowds and connecting the Harmonic team with a range of new investors across the event. With hundreds of photographs taken of the activation, organic posts on X started popping up within a matter of hours. Next, Finland’s largest newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat) showed up and soon our unicorn was in the press. As far as guerilla marketing is concerned, there are few greater markers for a successful concept.
