Submitted by YKONEAgency IPI Score 84/100

La Puffy Hotel

Influencer Marketing

YKONE transformed a Milan hotel set into a content engine for Liu Jo's Puffy Bag launch, generating 6.7 million impressions from 20 VIP creators across 161 organic posts.

1.9MReach
6.7MImpressions
64.1KInteractions

About the campaign

Liu Jo was launching its Puffy Bag into several EMEA markets where the Italian fashion brand had limited organic following, meaning earned media had to do the distribution work a pre-existing regional audience would otherwise perform, at a moment when influencer press events have become formulaic enough that creators often deliver only perfunctory attendance posts.

YKONE's answer was La Puffy Hotel, a fully branded hotel-themed environment in Milan conceived so that the Puffy Bag sat at the centre of every content opportunity creators encountered as they moved through the space. The working assumption was that creators placed inside a visually coherent, brand-designed world produce more voluminous and credible content than those handed a conventional script.

Twenty VIP influencers, including @biancabalti, @chloelecareux, and @valerialborghetti, attended as hotel guests, with YKONE handling bespoke invitations, interior styling, experience design, casting, booking, and on-site content production in-house, and centralised artistic direction keeping posts visually consistent. The activation sat within a broader three-phase Puffy Bag programme spanning 59 influencers across Italy, France, Spain, and Germany over a year.

YKONE reports 161 organic Instagram posts, 1.9 million people reached, 6.7 million impressions, 64,000 interactions, and a 3.3 percent engagement rate, and the campaign won Best Use of Influencers in the Experiential category at The Drum Awards Festival 2025.

Case in 60 seconds

Liu Jo had limited organic following in several EMEA markets where it was launching the Puffy Bag, making it difficult to build rapid awareness around a single hero product without a pre-existing regional audience to amplify content.

Creators produce more authentic and voluminous content when placed inside a visually coherent, brand-designed world rather than briefed to fulfil a conventional content script, as noted in YKONE's campaign description.

YKONE conceived 'The Liu Jo Hotel', a branded hotel-themed environment in Milan that made the Puffy Bag the centrepiece of every content opportunity available to creators as they moved through the space.

Twenty VIP influencers — including @biancabalti, @chloelecareux, and @valerialborghetti — attended as hotel guests. YKONE handled bespoke invitations, interior styling, experience design, influencer casting and booking, and on-site content production, with creators distributing content organically on Instagram.

The activation produced 161 posts, 1.9 million people reached, 6.7 million impressions, and 64,000 interactions, all figures self-reported by YKONE. The campaign was awarded Best Use of Influencers in the Experiential category at The Drum Awards Festival 2025.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

The campaign targeted VIP and top-tier creators with established audiences across EMEA, concentrating reach in the markets, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, where Liu Jo was seeking to grow its presence for the Puffy Bag, per the broader programme overview.
Premium Italian fashion brands increasingly compete for creator attention at a moment when influencer press events have become formulaic. Liu Jo needed a format that would motivate genuine, high-quality content creation rather than perfunctory attendance posts, as described in YKONE's brief summary.
As a brand with limited established following in several EMEA markets, Liu Jo could not rely on organic amplification from an existing community. The Puffy Bag launch required earned media to substitute for the distribution work that paid media or brand-owned channels would otherwise have needed to perform.
Liu Jo positioned the Puffy Bag as a lifestyle object rather than a standalone accessory, using the hotel environment to embed the product in a coherent aspirational world, a framing managed through YKONE's centralised artistic direction.
Based on the available evidence, the agency's working assumption was that creators given a visually rich, well-designed environment require less direct scripting to produce brand-consistent content. Reducing content-ideation friction at the event level was expected to increase both volume and quality of organic posts, an approach described in YKONE's strategy notes.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Bespoke physical invitations ykone.com
  • Interior styling and set design for the hotel environment ykone.com
  • On-site content production by YKONE ykone.com
  • Organic Instagram posts by attending influencers ykone.com

Partners

  • YKONE (lead agency, full in-house production) ykone.com

Participation mechanic

  • 20 VIP influencers invited as hotel guests to an immersive branded environment ykone.com
  • Creators encouraged to produce and publish organic content from within the experience ykone.com
  • Centralised artistic direction maintained visual consistency across individual creator posts ykone.com

Creator role

  • VIP / top-tier talent as primary content generators, posting organically to their own Instagram audiences ykone.com
  • Named creators included @biancabalti, @chloelecareux, @valerialborghetti, @giorgiasalvaggio, @nuriablanco3, @capucinerqllrt, @korlanmadi, @thevictoriastella ykone.com

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult typeConfidence
People reached1.9 millionReachAgency reported
Impressions6.7 millionReachAgency reported
Interactions64.1KEngagementAgency reported

Awards & Recognition

Award showYearCategoryResultSource
The Drum Awards Festival2025Best Use of Influencers, ExperientialWinner—

Why YKONE's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A hotel-themed environment gave creators a defined visual world to document, reducing content-ideation friction and keeping the Puffy Bag central to every post without requiring a rigid individual brief, as described in YKONE's campaign notes.

  2. 2

    Distributing the activation across 20 creators rather than a single ambassador produced 161 posts and spread reach across multiple pre-existing audiences simultaneously, a volume that would be difficult to achieve through commissioned content alone.

  3. 3

    Casting a mix of high-profile names — including @biancabalti — alongside a broader mid-tier roster allowed the campaign to combine credibility signals with wider audience breadth across EMEA markets.

  4. 4

    Centralised artistic direction by YKONE maintained brand visual consistency across content produced in different creators' individual styles, an approach that addresses a common quality-control challenge in multi-creator event activations, per YKONE's description.

  5. 5

    In markets where Liu Jo had limited organic following, event-based earned media substituted for paid distribution, concentrating budget in experience design and creator access rather than amplification spend.

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