Submitted by House of Comms

Victoria's Secret Bombshell Oud: Museum of Senses

House of Comms launched Victoria's Secret Bombshell Oud in Dubai with a two-day Museum of Senses activation, reporting 200+ Pieces of Coverage Across the Reason.

1M+AVE value in USD
29+media and influencers in attendance
200+pieces of coverage
5M+reach

Case in 60 seconds

Victoria's Secret needed the Bombshell Oud fragrance launched in time for Ramadan at its flagship Dubai Mall store, so the work had to serve media, influencers and shopping customers inside one fixed retail location and one fixed cultural window.

The campaign appears to turn on the fragrance itself being the thing that cannot be photographed, so House of Comms built the launch around smell, sound and sight together rather than asking media and influencers to cover a product they could only look at.

Museum of Senses treated the launch as a journey of discovery through the world of Bombshell Oud, staging the fragrance as an environment guests moved through rather than a product presented to them in the flagship store.

House of Comms ran a two-day in-store activation at Dubai Mall with different activations across smell, sound and sight, then took guests to a viewing spot for Burj Khalifa where a video celebrating the launch illuminated the building, with media and influencer gifting before the event and further regional influencer gifting after it.

House of Comms reports 29+ Media & Influencers in Attendance, 200+ Pieces of Coverage Across the Reason, 1M+ AVE Value in USD and 5M+ Reach, and names Mina Al Sheikhly, Tamara Al Gabbani, Safa Srour and Farah Al Hady among those the team worked with.

Strategy Breakdown

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

Media and influencers in the UAE and the wider region, alongside customers at the brand's flagship Dubai Mall store.
Ramadan set the launch date for an oud fragrance in a market where oud is a familiar category rather than a novelty, so the timing gave the launch a reason to exist in the calendar rather than only in the retail schedule.
Fragrance cannot be conveyed through the channels that carry coverage, which is why the work put media and influencers physically inside the product for two days rather than briefing them on it.
Victoria's Secret used its Dubai Mall flagship as the venue rather than a neutral event space, so the activation and the point of purchase were the same address.
Based on the available evidence, the campaign reads as built on the expectation that attendees post what they experience rather than what they are told, so the Burj Khalifa moment gave the guest list a shareable close the in-store portion could not produce on its own.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • video

Partners

  • House of Comms (lead_agency)

Participation mechanic

  • Guests moved through the Museum of Senses as a journey of discovery across smell, sound and sight, then attended a viewing spot for the Burj Khalifa video.

Creator role

  • Farah Al Hady — creator
  • Mina Al Sheikhly — creator
  • Safa Srour — creator
  • Tamara Al Gabbani — creator
  • 29+ Media & Influencers in Attendance
  • key media and influencers in the UAE

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
AVE value in USD1M+performance
media and influencers in attendance29+creators_count
pieces of coverage200+performance
reach5M+reach

Why House of Comms's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A sensory product benefits from an activation built as a route through it, because guests who move through smell, sound and sight in sequence leave with something to describe rather than an image of a bottle.

  2. 2

    Gifting placed both before and after an event extends a two-day activation across a longer coverage window, because the pre-event drop builds attendance while the post-event drop reaches influencers in the region who were never in the room.

  3. 3

    Anchoring a launch to a landmark the whole city can see gives an in-store event a second audience beyond its guest list, which is how a flagship-store activation reaches beyond the flagship store.

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