There were coconut club vibes at the Democratic National Committee Convention. One of the most eye-catching exhibits of the DNCC was The Coconut Club pop up that BBOI conceived of and produced. In partnership with Social Currant, we created an activation full of references and memes surrounding Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
The task of taking something like the coconut meme and bringing it to life was no ordinary task, but we rose to the occasion with vision, creativity, and grit.
Before a single panel was built, we got busy imagining the details. What would a club fit to house the values and ethos of Kamala Harris as a candidate look and feel like? We dreamt up a welcoming creed, an inviting cafe menu, cartoon coconuts with slogans that called for forward momentum. We dressed the exterior with a neon sign and—per direction of the social impact creator team at Social Currant—an exclusive QR code, which gave visitors access to exclusive DNCC Snapchat filters.
Some of the details offered a set of wink-wink insights about the candidate, even if not fully recognized by all visitors. For instance, on the cafe menu was something called ‘Oxtail Samosas,’ a food that typically does not exist but for which we chose because it was a nod to the Jamaican and Indian background of Kamala Harris. The same was true for the wallpaper pattern we made for the interior of the club, which featured an array of icons—coconuts and palm trees mixed with books and medical symbols evoking education and healthcare respectively.
And once you walked inside, we created a cool, vibrant spot with colorful coconut themed wallpaper, cafe tables and bean bag chairs. It was half work space, half action space. All so the many popular and prolific creators who infused the DNC Convention with their reach and relevancy could post about the Harris campaign from the DNCC.
It was super fun, but also incredibly strategic. At Big Bowl of Ideas that’s the nexus we like to sit within. The influence of creators on this year’s presidential campaign is evident upon opening as social feed from TikTok to Facebook. To miss an opportunity to build relationships and create experiences for this group would be missing the chance to affect a huge way voters are getting their information.
In you are unclear on the creator world and its connection to political campaigns see this CBS news story, which we think is an insightful capturing of the state of play for TikTok, YouTube, and IG creators involved in political campaigns and advocacy, even if they are not a ‘political influencer’ on an average day.
