The encyclopedia · Marketing & Brand · Marketing decision · 2021-2022
Bombay Sapphire auctioned art to the strongest senses, not the deepest wallet
At the Sensory Auction, bids were EEG, pulse and eye-tracking reactions — the winner was the guest who felt the art most.
Bombay Sapphire
the move
Bombay Sapphire's brand platform is about sensory experience, but art auctions are usually the opposite: whoever has the most money wins. The Sensory Auction inverted the rule.
At Lume Studios in New York, on International Gin & Tonic Day (19 October 2021), guests bid on an original sculpture by artist Dan Lam. Bidders were fitted with neuroaesthetic sensors — EEG electrodes, skin-galvanic response monitors and eye trackers — and their physical reactions to the piece became their bids.
The person with the strongest measured emotional response, not the biggest checkbook, took home the artwork, titled 'Mouthfeel.' The auction was open to the public in time slots and doubled as a demonstration of the brand's 'Senses Stirred' campaign idea.
The work, with BBDO New York and experiential firm TXG, was shortlisted at D&AD 2022 and earned coverage as a genuinely new auction format — money replaced by the very thing the brand sells.
why it works
- Sensory bidding made the brand claim the actual currency of the event
- Wealth stopped being the barrier, so the audience felt included
- The measurement tech was the spectacle and the proof at once
- One event produced photos, stories and a new category of auction
what transfers
Translate your brand metaphor into the mechanics of the event itself: when the product is about sensation, make sensation the currency of the experience, and the audience becomes the demonstration.
what came after
The Sensory Auction became one of the most-covered brand events of the season and was shortlisted at D&AD 2022. Bombay Sapphire used it to anchor its 'Senses Stirred' platform, and the format has since been cited as a template for brands that want their audience to feel the product claim.
references
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