LINKEDIN MARKETING SOLUTIONS · UK AGENCY & CLIENT ENGAGEMENT
THE BUSINESS PROBLEM
By 2016, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions had seen considerable growth in the UK agency market. LinkedIn was regarded as a trusted, professional platform, and our marketing team was producing valuable thought leadership. But our commercial teams were struggling to build meaningful relationships with the people working in agencies.
We tried agency roadshows, white papers, e-guides, panel discussions and high-value industry content. The feedback, however, kept coming back to one thing:
“FACEBOOK BRINGS US CUPCAKES.”
The UK agency industry was young, creative and sociable. People wanted to engage with brands in ways that felt fun, personal and unexpected. While competitors were creating memorable moments, LinkedIn was still largely showing up as the sensible, professional platform.
The challenge was to change that perception. How could we show the people and personality behind LinkedIn, give our commercial teams a more natural way to build relationships, and create something the agency world would actually notice?
Christmas was already dominated by established parties and dinners. Summer was difficult to lock down, with annual leave and companies running their own events. But Halloween was largely unclaimed.
The idea was simple: make LinkedIn the event people associated with Halloween in the agency calendar.
It was a risk. LinkedIn was known for its corporate professionalism, and this was the first time the business had invested in this kind of relationship-led experience. We were stepping well outside what people expected from the brand.
THE PROPOSITION WAS SIMPLE. THE PROOF STILL HAD TO COME.
THE FIRST HALLOWEEN
I took the initial Halloween idea and developed the business case, proposal, budget and event format, making the argument for a different kind of investment in our agency relationships.
We wanted the experience to begin long before guests arrived. We created an online Monster Masher invitation, styled like a slot machine. Guests pulled a virtual lever to discover their assigned Halloween character, giving them a reason to engage with the event before the night itself.
Then came the Monster Ball. A stilt-walking performer greeted guests at the door, followed by costumes, competitions, themed entertainment and brain-shaped canapés. Every detail was designed to feel like a departure from the LinkedIn people thought they knew.
We expected around 150 guests. As word spread throughout the evening, people started calling colleagues at other events and telling them to come to ours instead. By the end of the night, around 250 people had attended.
~150 EXPECTED → ~250 ATTENDED
In 2017, we took over Village Underground in Shoreditch, transforming the space beneath the railway arches into a Horror Circus.
Make-up artists transformed LinkedIn staff, live performers and prizes added to the spectacle, and Rockaoke put guests on stage with a live band.
But this time, the experience didn't begin at the venue. We delivered themed scare packs to key agencies on the day, giving teams something to open, share and talk about before they even arrived.
BEFORE → EXPERIENCE → AFTER
Eventually, the question agency teams kept hearing wasn’t whether Halloween would happen. It was when. Guests were searching for the event months before we’d announced the theme, date or location. Sales teams began using it deliberately as part of customer engagement: hand-delivering scare boxes, taking agency clients for drinks beforehand and using Halloween as another reason to spend time together.
~200 INVITED → ~500 ATTENDED
By 2018, Halloween had become a fixture in the agency calendar. Clients were contacting their LinkedIn reps months in advance, and invitations were snapped up almost immediately.
This year, we went all in. An extensive pre-event communications campaign built anticipation before guests arrived, while the venue was transformed into a fully immersive post-apocalyptic world. Guests crossed through the apocalypse to enter, were hosed down by hazmat teams and given ‘radiation shots’ on arrival. Inside, they discovered themed environments, make-up artists, live performers, bands, interactive experiences and the now-annual costume competition.
But the biggest shift was happening beyond the event itself. Sales teams were finding that Halloween gave them a reason to reconnect with clients, opened doors to meetings and opportunities, and made follow-up conversations easier. Year-on-year engagement was growing, and the perception of LinkedIn as simply the sensible, corporate platform was beginning to change.
~500 EXPECTED → ~1,000 ATTENDED
MYTHS & MONSTERS
By 2019, Halloween had become something we were almost struggling to keep up with. Guests were searching online months in advance, trying to discover the date and theme before we’d announced either. Building on 2018’s success, the challenge was to make it feel even bigger without increasing the budget.
We took over Camden Stables, transforming its Victorian maze of rooms, corridors and hidden spaces into Myths & Monsters. The build-up started weeks earlier with personalised black foil invitations, followed by pirate chests packed with Kraken rum, make-up and surprises delivered to key agencies. Sales reps took clients for drinks beforehand, while our own team arrived transformed into mermaids, Valkyries and monsters.
A fire-breathing saxophonist entertained the queue before LED drummers led guests through ivy-covered, fairy-lit corridors. Inside, giant Kraken tentacles emerged from the walls, sirens hosted karaoke, and a life-sized unicorn watched over a secret garden of mythical makeovers. Tarot readers, pirate tattooists and hidden rooms gave guests something new to discover at every turn.
LinkedIn’s own band, LinkedIn Park, opened the party before Rockaoke took over, with guests belting out Mr Brightside. The annual costume competition returned, complete with mythical prizes.
But the real magic was what happened beyond the party. Some guests who met at Halloween went on to get married. We’d created a community that people wanted to return to, and the wider business was now asking how we could bring the experience to France, DACH and New York.
We had big plans for 2020. Until…
500 INVITED · 1,000 REGISTERED · ~2,000 ATTENDED
FROM “HOW MANY PEOPLE CAME?” TO “WHAT DID IT ACTUALLY DELIVER?”
By 2019, we didn’t need to prove that people wanted to attend. Demand was growing, relationships were strengthening and the event had become part of the agency calendar. But as the investment grew, so did the need to demonstrate its value beyond attendance figures.
Not every meaningful outcome could be tied directly to revenue. We needed to look at the bigger picture: who we were reaching, what people remembered and talked about, the relationships being built and the commercial opportunities those connections created.
REACH
Who were we connecting with?
RESONANCE
What did people remember, share and talk about?
RELATIONSHIPS
What conversations and customer access did it create?
REVENUE
What commercial impact could be attributed?
2020
We were already planning the next Halloween when Covid brought live events to a halt. But the reason Halloween existed hadn’t changed. If anything, creating opportunities for our commercial teams to connect with agency clients had become more important than ever.
So we took Halloween online. We built an interactive virtual world, sent physical kits to guests and created a programme of 13 experiences across 13 hours, broadcast from a fully dressed studio. From pumpkin carving and musical bingo to a mad scientist’s mixology lab, guests could explore, participate and connect from home.
The format was different, but the thinking remained the same: every interaction was another opportunity to build a relationship.
480
GUESTS INVITED
610
EVENT ATTENDANCES
2,378
WEBSITE VIEWS
685
UNIQUE VISITORS
5.24 MIN
AVERAGE TIME ON SITE
IN 13 HOURS
“THE BEST VIRTUAL EVENT OF THE YEAR.” — MEDIA OCEAN
“No other partners have engaged with us around entertainment during lockdown and none of them have done anything close to your virtual Halloween party.” — PHD MEDIA
EVERY TOUCHPOINT CREATED ANOTHER REASON FOR OUR TEAMS TO CONNECT WITH CUSTOMERS.
What started as an experiment to change how agencies perceived LinkedIn became an annual event people actively sought out. It gave commercial teams a reason to start conversations, strengthen relationships and reconnect with clients, while building a community that returned year after year.
EXPERIMENT → ANNUAL RITUAL → BRAND PROPERTY
In 2021, restrictions were easing, but the world wasn’t quite back to normal. So Halloween evolved again.
We created Punk Rock Horror, combining another interactive virtual world with an intimate, themed in-person experience for priority agency customers.
Guests could explore different rooms, choose their own virtual experiences and reconnect in person where possible.
The format kept changing, but the purpose never did.
PHYSICAL → IMMERSIVE → VIRTUAL → HYBRID
STRATEGY & PROPOSITION
Identifying the audience opportunity and turning an initial Halloween idea into a recurring experience that changed how agencies engaged with LinkedIn.
BUSINESS CASE & INVESTMENT
Developing the proposal, budgets and business case, securing internal support and demonstrating the value of relationship-led experiences beyond immediate revenue.
STAKEHOLDER & SALES ENABLEMENT
Working closely with agency and sales teams to turn Halloween into a tool for opening conversations, strengthening relationships and creating commercial opportunities.
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Developing the annual themes, creative direction and guest journey, from the first invitation to the final surprise on the night.
CREATIVE CONTENT & COPYWRITING
Writing more Halloween puns than anyone should reasonably have to, and working closely with designers to bring each theme to life across every touchpoint.
INVITATIONS & AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
Building anticipation through personalised invitations, agency deliveries, creative campaigns and communications that started the experience long before guests arrived.
DELIVERY & PARTNERS
Leading venues, agencies, suppliers, production and the operational delivery needed to turn increasingly ambitious ideas into reality.
PROGRAMME EVOLUTION
Growing the event year after year, introducing new experiences and responding to demand without losing the personality that made people return.
PIVOT & REINVENTION
Rebuilding the programme for virtual and hybrid delivery during Covid while protecting its original purpose: bringing people and brands together.
MULTI-YEAR PROGRAMME
Built and evolved over multiple annual iterations
~150 → ~2,000
From original expected audience to peak physical attendance
PHYSICAL → VIRTUAL → HYBRID
Reinvented as the environment changed
AGENCY → CLIENT
Expanded beyond the original agency audience
We set out to give LinkedIn Marketing Solutions a distinctive place in the agency calendar. Somewhere along the way, Halloween became something customers asked about before we’d even announced it.
The themes changed. The scale changed. Eventually, the entire format changed. But the purpose remained the same: creating experiences that brought people together, opened doors for our commercial teams and gave customers a reason to keep coming back.
What started as an experiment became a tradition. And for a brand once told that its competitors brought cupcakes, that was quite a transformation.
