Event Marketing 101

Welcome back to The Friday Fortune! We’re deep in the conference season, and if you’ve ever navigated any huge event, you know how hard it is to stand out. Booths blur together, pitches start to sound the same, and after three days of handshakes and happy hours, most interactions fade into the background.

Each week, we bring you fresh insights from top CMOs, marketing legends, and bold strategists to help you make an impact. This week, we’re diving into one of the biggest challenges in marketing: cutting through the noise at events.

Because let’s be real, playing it safe never built a legendary brand.

Let’s get started.

Picture this: It’s nine AM. You’ve got a belly full of coffee, a lanyard around your neck, and a smile on your face.

Doors open. The auditorium’s abuzz. Thousands of people mixing and mingling. Row after row of display booths calling your name, some larger than your apartment. 

Branded freebies. Games. Prizes. Handshakes. Constant noise. Constant stimuli. 

A constant fight for your precious attention.   

So, how do you break through? Simple: Do what no one else is doing.

You must create experiences. And we sure as hell did that at Consensus 2025 in Hong Kong.

Everything we did was designed to cast aside the typical conference interaction script.

Instead of waiting for folks to trickle to us, we hit the floor.

We ran around with bags full of fortune cookies initiating eating contests with attendees (how many fortune cookies could you slam in 30 seconds?). We had dance-offs. We juggled. We proposed to people with fortune cookies and wrapped stuffed animal snakes around their necks.

Our CMO set up a live podcast studio and chatted with dozens of today’s most interesting web3 leaders, so we could build content and relationships that extended far beyond the event. 

People may think it’s absurd, but those tend to be the same flavor of folks who will never see their ad campaigns smash social shares, brand search, word-of-mouth referrals, unaided recall, long-term ad retention…we could go on.   

Even when we did follow the standard playbook — like when our President Carlo Palomino moderated a panel on web3 investment — he made an impact that actually got people’s attention. 

He opened with a dance. He unexpectedly threw cookies into the crowd mid-session. Turned the panel into a performance and game.

And in the middle of a rooftop venue with the Hong Kong skyline behind him, he proved the point: attention follows the unexpected.

And that’s exactly what OpenFortune does. We don’t interrupt moments. We create them. 

If you’re not familiar with our game:

• We are global. Distribute cookies across 100k partner restaurants globally, reaching up to 300M people in 30 countries every month. 
  

• We are tangible. >90% of companies that attended Consensus eat, drink, sleep, and breathe in the digital world. Fortune cookies let you physically zig while competitors zag.   
  

• We are experiential. You’re sitting around a table. You’re unwrapping your cookie amongst friends, family. You share your fortunes. You laugh. You listen. Hello, pattern interruption. Hello, memorable conversation. 
   

• We are memorable. A fortune on one side, your brand on the other — burned into the hearts and minds of target consumers. 
  
  Check out our full 2025 Consensus Recap right here:

🥠 The Cookie Jar

Crack open a handful of the week’s best marketing links—because good fortune favors the curious.

• April Fools’ Day 2025—See all the best brand pranks from Asda to Yahoo. These companies proved that corporate humor is no laughing matter... except when it is.

• Chili’s serves up ‘Office’ nostalgia at new Scranton location. Finally, a place where you can have your Baby Back Ribs with a side of 'That's what she said.

• Google and Roblox partner on ad deal. The $11.5 billion gaming ad market just got more competitive as Google slides into Roblox's DMs—and inventory.

• How fortune cookie advertising amplifies your organic marketing strategy. Your next viral campaign is hiding inside a cookie.

That’s a wrap for this week’s Friday fortune.

Loved this edition? Send it to a marketer who appreciates good branding (or just enjoys a well-placed fortune cookie pun).

Until next time, may your marketing be memorable and your cookies always be fortunate!

— The OpenFortune team