Pick a move, a goal, a moment, an emotion, and a budget. You get a working brief: concept, names, the senses plan, the fan-out, the measurement, and the thing that kills it in committee. Every play is hand-written, not generated.
The move
The goal
Where it lands
The feeling
Budget tier
The brief
Borrowed stage · category authority
The concept
Show up where your audience already is, uninvited but welcome. You don’t build the audience; you borrow the one your competitor or category already paid to assemble, and you become the thing people actually talk about there. Engineer it for surprise: put the moment where nothing is expected — the error page, the invoice, the Tuesday. It lands in person, where the physical world is your canvas and other attendees are the distribution: build for photos and for the story people tell back at the hotel bar. Run it as a point-of-view statement: the campaign is the argument, made unforgettable. Seed it to the people whose retelling matters — analysts, operators, communities.
Name it — patterns, fill the blanks
The [Event] HijackUninvited: [City] EditionThe Best Booth Isn’t a Booth
The memory moment — write this before any creative
“Months from now, they’ll still talk about the time we ______.” If the blank won’t fill, the brief isn’t done.
The senses plan · standard · $5–25k
A full truck, trailer, or storefront takeover adjacent to the event with a line-worthy giveaway.
A counter-programmed happy hour one door down, invite seeded to the attendee list.
Distribution fan-out · one moment → 8 assets
The on-site moment itself, captured by a dedicated shooter
3–5 short clips for social (vertical, captioned)
Photo set (the artifact, the line, the faces)
The recap post that tells it as a story, not a press release
Email to the list: the story + the artifact
Sales follow-up asset referencing the moment
Community thread: behind-the-scenes and the numbers
The post-mortem, published — receipts build the next audience
Measurement — what to watch, no invented benchmarks
Branded search volume during and after the window
Share of voice and third-party mentions (earned, not paid)
Citations and pickups: who retold it without being asked
Contagion coverage — STEPPS, per Jonah Berger
✓ Social currencyTriggersEmotion✓ PublicPractical value✓ Stories
This move covers 3 of 6 levers natively. Bolster the rest in execution: triggers, emotion, practical value.
What kills it in committee
Legal and venue blowback if you cross from adjacent to intrusive. Stay on public ground, punch up not down, and be generous instead of snide; the move is charm, not sabotage.