"Working together on the Marina project was a notable highlight. We couldn't have done that without your involvement. — Josef O'Connor, Artistic Director & Founder, CIRCA"
Overview
CIRCA is a contemporary art platform that commissions the world’s most important living artists to create new work displayed on screens in London’s Piccadilly Circus, Los Angeles, Milan, Seoul, and Tokyo. Its artist programme reads like a survey of contemporary art history: Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, Anne Imhof, Pussy Riot, Agnes Denes, ARCA, Laurie Anderson, Frank Bowling.
Tell Your Friends joined CIRCA as their embedded digital marketing partner for three years — managing strategy, media buying, and conversion systems across every major artist drop. The Marina Abramović Unconditional Love print release was the platform’s commercial centrepiece.
The Challenge
Selling high-value, limited-edition art prints online is a precision operation. The audience is global, the edition is narrow, and the artist’s brand expectations are absolute.
The objective was twofold: find serious collectors globally and drive purchases for a hand-signed edition, while building a repeatable digital infrastructure that could power future releases across CIRCA’s entire artist programme.
Strategy & Creative Architecture
Rather than broad awareness spending, we engineered a layered media model designed for collector acquisition:
- High-Intent Collector Targeting: Concentrating media spend in verified collector markets, continuously refined by live purchase data across 22 countries.
- Intent Capture & Video Pre-Roll: Capturing active global search intent while using prestige video creative to build international gravitas.
- Creative Integrity: Adapting campaign assets across platforms without diluting the weight of the artist’s legacy. The creative wasn’t treated as disposable advertising — it was treated as an extension of the artwork itself.
Results & Impact
The campaign became the most commercially successful release in CIRCA’s history:
- £880k+ in attributed print sales across global channels.
- 42x return on ad spend across Meta and Google.
- 5+ million impressions & 2.4M people reached worldwide.
- Purchases across 22 countries, with Italy leading performance followed by the US and UK.
The Broader CIRCA Partnership (2022–2025)
The infrastructure built during the Marina release powered three years of embedded campaigns across the roster, including Ai Weiwei, Olafur Eliasson, Agnes Denes, Pussy Riot, and Frank Bowling.
“Working together on the Marina project was a notable highlight. We couldn’t have done that without your involvement. Your work has had a real impact, and we’re grateful for the care and dedication you’ve brought to the team.” — Josef O’Connor, Artistic Director & Founder, CIRCA
