case study

Beverly Hills Centennial

The Pollack Group

A Birthday Party Becomes an Experiential Lifestyle Event

When the city of Beverly Hills, renowned for its special glitz worldwide, turned 100 in 2014, it wanted to celebrate in a big way. A  block party was staged on Rodeo Drive, creating a family-focused experiential event replete with a commissioned birthday cake by agency client Luxe Rodeo Drive Hotel, created in partnership with famed pastry chef Donald Wressell of the Guittard Chocolate Company. The staggering 4,000-pound chocolate cake that depicted Beverly Hills City Hall and Rodeo Drive served 15,000 people, which generated hundreds of millions of earned media impressions as well as social media mentions. To build up momentum to that day, we “seeded” media stories, planned mini events, held a cake-tasting preview for media, showed off with a 3-D model of the cake design and shot a video of the “making-of-the-cake” — a time-lapse video that wowed viewers around the world when released.

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