Art Exhibit Marketing Strategy Helps NOLA Pop-Up Thrive During Pandemic

JAMNOLA stands for Joy, Art & Music – New Orleans. JAMNOLA is New Orleans’ first experiential pop-up that takes audiences of all ages on a topsy-turvy stroll through the cultural gems that make the city so special. The 12-room exhibit features art from over 20+ New Orleans artists.

JAMNOLA is located at 2832 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70117 in the Marigny neighborhood which is a 5-minute ride share or 15-minute walk from the French Quarter.

Our team began working with JAMNOLA during the summer of 2020 prior to the grand opening of their Art Exhibit. The interactive art attraction had to make a huge pivot when COVID-19 completely disrupted their initial plans for launch.

Our two teams would have to collaborate and figure out how we would take a museum that was initially meant to be very hands-on and achieve success during a pandemic. Limitations included the number of individuals allowed in the building at a time as well as ensuring that the location was cleaned constantly. Likewise we had to communicate this effectively to guests while avoiding razor-tight advertising restrictions on ad networks due to COVID-19.

The obstacles were numerous. In order to achieve success, the digital strategy team at Anderson Collaborative had to work with a limited advertising budget, maximize its return, build a very tactical media plan, and ensure at the end of the day after all marketing expenditures that the event didn’t just survive but was profitable.

After months of delay and investment dollars lost due to the Pandemic, doors were set to open on August 1st. We had roughly 15 days to prove we could establish a profitable marketing model or a decision to keep the location open through September and beyond was highly unlikely.

“JAMNOLA opens to the public Aug. 1, a full four months later than expected. The reason for the delay was, as you may have guessed, the advent of the coronavirus contagion. No start-up business has been more crushed by COVID-19 than JAMNOLA. – NOLA.com”

Despite these incredible obstacles, we managed to succeed. Pre-sale advertising efforts spearheaded by the Anderson Collaborative team immediately achieved profitability at a very large scale and our cross-channel marketing funnel approach turned out to be incredibly effective. With our team tracking revenue generated from every campaign, ad set, and ad creative, we were able to make tactical decisions quickly to promote only the combinations that generated the most return on ad spend. Month one return on ad spend was as high as 25x (every dollar invested generated $25 in revenue). With just $4,500 spent over the course of August, we were able to generate $115,000+ in ticket revenue.

And we’ve managed to maintain these results with an average return on ad spend of over ten times since campaigns launched. Nearly a year later JAMNOLA continues to sell out nearly weekly and has become a staple in the New Orleans art community. Our team continues to be their partner in Digital Marketing initiatives to this day. JAMNOLA achieved an overwhelming amount of press coverage appearing in articles from the likes of Forbes, Offbeat Magazine, Thrillist, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

“We’re seeing a 12–18x ROI on our ads. They utilize a lot of our free media and press coverage to make us feel more authentic and less “salesy.” 

– Amber Soletti | Head of Marketing & PR, Jamnola

Sample of video promotional material utilized in Youtube sequence ad efforts.

Responsive banner design used in programmatic advertising & retargeting. 

Press coverage and programmatic video retargeting. 

Anderson Collaborative live cross-channel dashboard utilized to connect to 15 marketing account APIs and to centralize analytics. Reporting platform available on all devices.

Cross-channel media planning to organize ad placements, allocate budget, build marketing funnels, build ROI estimates, and develop a growth marketing model to scale up our efforts. 

Verified 5 star reviews on Clutch & Upcity.