Award-winning native: Out-of-this-world graphics draw public into a Hong Kong art exhibition

We're highlighting the winners of the Native Advertising AWARDS 2022. This post features the Best Use of Infographics

• Campaign: The Moon is Leaving Us
• Publisher/Agency: Morning Studio, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
• Brand: Audemars Piguet

The fifth Audemars Piguet Art Commission appeared in Asia for the first time in 2021, featuring Hong Kong-based multidisciplinary artist Phoebe Hui. The large-scale, immersive installation, “The Moon Is Leaving Us”, was shown in Hong Kong at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts.

To facilitate awareness and to lay the groundwork for conversion to the event, Morning Studio produced an immersive universe of content, kicked off online with strong editorial storytelling, revealing photos and stylistic illustrations. 

Its infographic story was organised into six chapters, each punctuated with striking graphics that smoothly guided readers through the information while making the abstract topic more digestible and concrete. 

The design implemented the parallax effect, set in the environment of outer space, to create the illusion of depth and perspective. The customised multimedia format beautifully encapsulated the art, science and poetry that inspired Phoebe Hui's art installation. It took the audience to the moon and back, leading them to the in-person experience at Tai Kwun.

There, readers-turned-event goers were guided by a custom 32-page, bilingual print booklet titled "Lunar Effect", also produced by Morning Studio. Though the event became a hybrid virtual and limited in-person experience due to Covid-19, it was a huge success.

Distribution

The campaign was fully online-to-offline.

The multimedia page was published on the studio’s website, the South China Morning Post, garnering quality organic traffic to the story. Banner ads also ran across the studio’s desktop and mobile platforms for the duration of the campaign. 

The campaign was also linked on the studio’s Facebook and Instagram profiles. As a highly visual piece, Instagram was chosen as the best platform for promoting the multimedia story.

In addition to the digital execution, the team produced a print booklet to be distributed in-person at the actual art exhibition held in Hong Kong's Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts so visitors could learn more details about the pieces created by Phoebe Hui. This particular step served an important role in bringing readers from online to offline interaction – from viewing a multimedia interactive experience to seeing a stunning physical art installation in real life.

Results

In 30 days, the campaign reached over 321,631 users in total, 2,500% over the target. 

• The studio’s website received 84,895 page views during the campaign period 
• Distribution across multiple channels got over 3.6 million impressions, 80% over target 
• The promotional banners for the episode saw an overall total CTR of 0.12%.
• The campaign's promo banner CTR on the studio’s app interstitial ad was outstanding, at 2.7%. This most apparent and largest format relative to screen size indicates that users are interested in highly engaging imagery and catchy tag lines. 
• Through the visual content and creative illustrations, the story attracted the highest average time spent on the article (3 minutes, 36 seconds) in comparison to all branded content campaigns published on the studio website in 2021. The final average time spent was 260% over target.

Takeaway

Creating dynamic, immersive experiences through thoughtful and functional-yet-impressive graphic art is a great format for telling a story that will resonate with the audience.