Case study · Sunrise Festival
Sunrise Festival filled its marketing campaign in the run-up to the festival with 323 videos it did not have to make itself, and turned the best ones into Spark Ads.
323
TikToks made by fans in seven weeks
4.2M
views across the campaign
30+
videos promoted as Spark Ads
In the words of Sunrise
“We were genuinely surprised by how many people they managed to onboard, and by how they turned them into real promoters of our brand.”
Nicholas Donckers
Marketing Manager, Sunrise Festival / Dare to Dream Events
The festival
Sunrise Festival runs 200+ artists across seven stages throughout a weekend including campsite and welcomed over 75,000 visitors this past edition. A festival that size sells in anticipation. In the weeks before the gates open a big part of the audience is still deciding whether this is the edition they go to, and most of that decision happens on a phone.
So instead of making more content itself, Sunrise asked its own fans to create it. In seven weeks, around 200 of them posted 323 TikToks through an Innercrowd creator campaign, which together reached 4.2 million views.
The challenge
A festival of Sunrise’s size has to stay in people’s feeds for months before the gates open. On socials, and especially TikTok, that takes a steady supply of new videos. Far more than a brand account can produce on its own to fill both its organic posting and its ads.
Paid reach runs into the same wall. Spark Ads perform best with videos that look native to the ‘For You’ page and come from real accounts, and most festivals have no stock of those ready to boost. What they have is brand creative, made by their own marketing team, which viewers recognise instantly as a brand asset. Both problems have the same root. The festival is one platform trying to sound like a crowd.
The solution
Sunrise ran a seven-week creator campaign on Innercrowd leading up to the festival. Creators signed up through a recruitment campaign on Sunrise’s socials, email and website. Once approved, they received a new creator assignment roughly every two weeks, each one briefing them on a new TikTok.
The briefs moved with the run-up, from line-up picks and festival fit checks to trending sounds and “get ready with me” videos, plus a “Surprise us” option for anyone who wanted to do it their own way.
Creators earned points when their video got approved, which they could spend on tickets to Sunrise itself. The reward was the festival. Sunrise selected the best content and Innercrowd requested the Spark codes from those creators so the videos could run as ads from the creators’ own accounts.
In the words of Sunrise
“You came across our festival everywhere, in a spontaneous and credible way. The visibility and engagement were enormous.”
Nicholas Donckers
Marketing Manager, Sunrise Festival / Dare to Dream Events
Strategy and results
110
TikToks from the first quest alone
Creators were rewarded in points to spend on Sunrise itself rather than in a fee. That changed who signed up. The people who took part were fans that wanted to be part of the build-up, which is why the videos read like fan content instead of sponsored posts, and why so many of them arrived so quickly. The first assignment closed with 110 TikToks.
323
TikToks in 51 days, more than six a day
Each assignment restarted the cycle. A new brief went out, creators posted within days, and a fresh batch of videos went live while the previous round was still being watched. That kept Sunrise in everyone’s ‘For You’ for a long period straight instead of for a few days after a single brief. Quality held with 39 percent of the videos in every round passing 10,000 views.
30+
videos promoted as Spark Ads
More than a third of everything posted passed 10,000 views organically, and two passed a million. Sunrise had no way of knowing in advance which video would take off. With 323 of them live, it did not need to. A Spark Ad puts ad budget behind an existing TikTok on the creator’s own account, so the video runs as an ad and keeps the creator’s name, likes and comments attached.
Every clip here was made by a Sunrise fan and posted on their own TikTok account during the seven-week campaign.
The takeaway
Most festivals treat creator content and paid social media as separate problems with separate budgets. Sunrise ran them as one. The community made the videos, the videos found their own audience, and the winners became the ad campaign.
This doesn’t take months of preparation either. Sunrise started seven weeks before the festival, so it’s something you can still set up for an edition that’s already on sale. And what Sunrise ended up receiving is not just 323 videos. They now also have around 200 fans who know how the briefs work and can post again next edition.
In the words of Sunrise
“They know exactly how to communicate with creators, how to get them excited and keep them involved. Innercrowd combines a personal approach with strong execution, and you can feel they want to help achieve our goals.”
Nicholas Donckers
Marketing Manager, Sunrise Festival / Dare to Dream Events
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