︎

Spy Museum


STEP INTO THE SHOES OF A SPY

Following years as the agency of record for the Spy Museum in Washington, DC, we were tasked with the relaunch of the popular attraction to coincide with a move to a high-profile new building.


The museum’s sleek new home was built with an immersive and reimagined exhibit experience tailored to the museum’s suspenseful education and entertainment collection, designed to challenge the preconceived notions around spies, boost adrenaline, and test visitors’ intuition. This included driving online engagement, ticket sales, and site visits after a full five months of closure. MISSION ACCEPTED.
 
Disciplines:
Creative Direction | Strategy | Video | Social | UX/UI 




 
To begin, when the original museum closed we created intrigue and interest by “interrogating” viewers about what they knew (at top) or by sending them “intel” revealing more details about the forthcoming new museum.





MISSION COUNTDOWN

Bringing the strategy to life, we created an experiential, clandestine campaign combining AR and digital objects that actually put fans into the shoes of a spy. We recruited local “agents” to crack clues in order to find physical and digital dead drops hidden at famous historical spy sites in the Washington, D.C. area, and claim secret prizes. 







“The immersive nature of the game highlights how present and surrounding this shadow world is in our lives–whether we’re aware of it or not–and inspires learners of all ages to dive further into the history. As a historian and curator, that’s success.“



Vince Houghton, Historian/Curator of the International Spy Museum




POST-LAUNCH

The final piece of our campaign, focused on driving attendance now that the museum was open, featured ads designed to elicit a visceral reaction and give potential visitors a taste of the secrets held within the museum. 







RESULTS

The museum exceeded engagement and awareness goals that were set by the client. It also gained the attention of local media within the DC metro area. Since I’m not technically a spy, here are the top-secret results:

150%

engagement
rate

33%

of players played multiple rounds

28%

increase in
organic Twitter impressions

100%

of clues
were found!