Frieze Art Fair Finds Brand Balance With a Hybrid Approach

Despite cyclical pandemic surges, inflation pressures and the lingering anxiety of returning to full-scale live events, Frieze Art Fair’s agile recovery was successful. Evidence comes in the form of sold-out exhibitions in London, Los Angeles and New York, but the final judgment of its successful return comes from major brand partners that have stuck with the art fair, including Deutsche Bank, MatchesFashion and Maestro Dobel Tequila. Fair organizers and partners took the lessons learned over the past few years about the myriad ways brands can create, support and enhance large public events. Further, they leveraged a renewed hunger for congregation—and a hunger for collaboration among sponsors and creators. Ultimately, the May event sold attendees, brands and partners on simply having fun again. That said, health protocols remained in place with only a slight loosening of demands: all visitors aged 5-11 had to provide proof of at least one course of the Covid-19 vaccination completed at least 14 days ahead of their visit. Those 18 and older had also to provide photo ID, and everyone had to wear a mask. “The return to live events has been an exciting moment, giving us the opportunity to launch new partnerships,” said Emily Glazebrook, Frieze’s commercial director. “Priorities have shifted in the pandemic. We are seeing more and more brands interested in art and culture and the audience that Frieze fairs attract. This year was more international than last year; the restrictions on travel were very much still in place in 2021, and so it was more difficult for overseas galleries, but they were back in force this year.” Loving VR Providing an impressive mix of live events and virtual content—onsite and online—Frieze’s brand partners drew from the lessons of 2021, combining the advantages of an in-person gathering with those of video technology to provide touch points for some real life mingling. One of the biggest takeaways from the last two years was that social and VR technology have become integral parts of Frieze experience for the fair itself, as well as brand partners and participating galleries. “The learnings that we’ve made from online have been huge—and we’ve reached such a large number of international visitors that would never be able to visit the fair in person,” Glazebrook said. In other words, hybrid is not just a pandemic health protocol anymore; it is a valued tool for expanding the market and is here to stay. In that regard, Frieze had some help from debut partner Vortic, a virtual reality platform focused on bringing art galleries to collectors’ offices and homes through 3D exhibitions. Vortic CEO Nick Walter echoed the view that online engagement adds a lot to the fair experience, in addition to future developments in virtual reality technology. Specifically for the New York fair, the brand worked with Frieze to create four custom exhibition booths that allowed participating galleries to “hang” and render their own exhibitions. “The enhanced viewing rooms facilitated increased engagement and dwell times, and several galleries have reported collector enquiries as a result,” Walter said. “Perhaps most importantly for us as a business, we’ve had specific comments from gallery participants about how our team and technology are so responsive to the needs of artists and that the platform exceeded their expectations.” Vortic’s experience with Frieze has led the virtual reality app maker to consider future ways in which the technology can be customized for specific exhibitions and individual artworks. Keeping it real and opening up Deutsche Bank, MatchesFashion and Maestro Dobel Tequila have had brand activations at Frieze for years. Joining Vortic this year were new partners like electronics marketer LG and luxury watchmaker Breguet, all of which sought to elevate their brand in the minds of Frieze’s savvy attendees by melding their image with those of artists and galleries. For Frieze, these sorts of collaborations are what attract sponsors every year. Wall signage and a logo on some brochures won’t capture attention at an art fair. Brands are very much a part of the show. Still, some brands have a more prominent place than others. This was the 19th year that Deutsche Bank served as Frieze’s global lead partner. An old hand at developing content for Frieze that is varied and unique to each city the fair shows in, the bank sponsors and produces many city-specific programs each year. Anna Herrhausen, global head of art and culture at Deutsche Bank, shared a number of them. There was London’s Frieze x Deutsche Bank Emerging Curators Fellowship, which aims to support emerging Black and brown curators; the Deutsche Bank Frieze Los Angeles Film Award, produced in cooperation with the Ghetto Film School and providing a platform and development program for aspiring L.A.-based filmmakers aged 18 to 34. For the New York exhibition, Deutsche Bank sought to strike a tone of greater openness to the elite event. “This year at Frieze NYC, we presented the Deutsche Bank Collection to the general public, and to our clients, as well as Frieze VIPs, by inviting them to tour our collection at the Deutsche Bank Center at Columbus Circle,” Herrhausen told Adweek. Speaking to the lessons learned from the pandemic, Herrhausen joined her fellow sponsors in the consensus that VR has become an important tool for increasing access to art events. “The major learning from the pandemic was the opportunity that digital platforms offer. Art can be made even more accessible through digital channels,” Herrhausen said. “A good example is Art:Live, the online program that we developed with Frieze to bring the fairs’ content to people around the world. Art:Live offers exclusive access to artists, collectors, curators and creatives in diverse fields, by way of artists’ talks and viewing rooms.” With an equally ambitious program of in-person and online events, shopping, podcasts and collaborations, luxury shopping concierge service MatchesFashion brought a little London to Los Angeles and New York this year. The apparel retailer created residencies in the form of a pop-up of its Carlos Place brick-and-mortar store. MatchesFashion also crafted virtual and on-location events in addition to showrooms, shops, podcasts and videos tied to Frieze. “We brought Carlos Place to the States and created residencies in Beverly Hills and the Upper East Side that showcased our edit of the latest collections alongside work by our art and design partners,” said Jess Christie, MatchesFashion’s chief brand and content officer. Cheers to the old and new Maestro Dobel Tequila tilted toward nostalgia in its Frieze activation, said Lander Otegui, svp of marketing at the brand’s parent company, Proximo Spirits. The experience it crafted to stand out at Frieze included their Artpothecary lounge and bar. “For this year’s Frieze theme, which was ‘the Mexican Golden Age,’ we partnered with several creators and innovators to interpret the Mexican way of living in the early years [when tequila emerged as a product]: how it looked, how it felt, how everyone drank tequila, where they drank tequila,” Otegui said. “The goal was to replicate that experience, honorably, for the modern day.” The brand engaged Clásicos Mexicanos, a project dedicated to the rich and engaging history of 20th century design in Mexico, to outfit its Artpothecary lounge and bar with a series of bespoke chairs and tables. All of the items were inspired by “one of the great masters of blending Mexican vernacular with international style, Ricardo Legorreta,” Otegui said. To further explore this era, Maestro Dobel brought in chef Jorge Vallejo of Mexico City’s Quintonil to create a modern menu created as homage to this pivotal period in Mexican design—and to complement the brand’s tequila cocktails, of course. Nostalgia also inspired Swiss watch brand Breguet, which commissioned Argentine artist Pablo Bronstein to bring its Breguet Lounge to life. The work, a wallpaper design, delights with surreal depictions of intricate watch-like mechanical architecture. The lounge also displayed Breguet craftsman Guillaume Braud engaged in a demonstration of the guillochage tool, which creates patterns for engraving on watches. The device was created by 16th century inventor—and the watch brand’s namesake—Abraham-Louis Breguet. This was Breguet’s debut partnership with Frieze. The relationship is expected to continue through 2024, as the brand collaborates with artists at Frieze’s next five international art fairs. Measuring success, brand by brand The successes of Frieze 2022 and brand partners relied largely on a potent mix of three strategies: providing a platform for creative collaborations, conveying a healthy respect for equally positive outcomes and building connections by mixing virtual and real attendance. There’s an unspoken agreement that no one is getting the upper hand in a Frieze activation. “We like to think of the relationship with our partners as mutually beneficial—of course, we have shared audiences, but we also reach new visitors via our partners,” Glazebrook said. “They also create extraordinary activations that really engage our audiences.” Ruinart’s Jeppe Hein installation at Frieze New York was a bona fide hit, Glazebrook attested. She also pointed to Breguet’s work with Pablo Bronstein as a well-attuned addition to the fair. Still, the feeling of accomplishment and achievement is made brand by brand. Each brand’s measurement of success “includes both hard and soft attributes, so while our partners are absolutely looking to add new clients and meet their KPIs, there are also more intangible benefits,” Glazebrook said. “Brand association and media awareness can be phenomenally important to our partners—when we work together to achieve that, it’s a fantastic experience.”

Branding

Frieze Art Fair Finds Brand Balance by Mixing Nostalgia With Modernity and Expanded Access

Past sponsors returned alongside new ones to create an in-person, high-tech event

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