Marina Abramović — Unconditional Love

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 in May 2022 as their embedded digital marketing partner — and stayed for three years. We managed the full digital stack: paid media across Meta, Google, TikTok, and YouTube; analytics and conversion tracking; eCommerce support across WordPress and Shopify; email marketing; and campaign strategy for every major artist drop on the platform.

The Marina Abramović Unconditional Love print campaign was the centrepiece — and the most commercially successful campaign CIRCA has ever run.

Challenge

Selling limited-edition art prints online is a precision operation. The audience is global, the price point is high, the window is narrow, and the brand expectations are absolute. Marina Abramović is one of the most recognised artists alive — any campaign carrying her name has to match that stature.

The objective was clear: reach collectors globally, drive sales for a hand-signed limited-edition print set, and execute with the precision the Abramović brand demands.

But this wasn’t an isolated brief. It sat within a broader challenge: building a repeatable paid media infrastructure that could be activated for any artist on CIRCA’s programme — from Marina to Ai Weiwei to Olafur Eliasson — with the same strategic rigour and commercial results.

The complexity:

• Global targeting across 22+ countries with different art-buying behaviours, currencies, and cultural contexts.
• High-value conversion — these aren’t impulse purchases. The campaigns had to find serious collectors, not browsers.
• Multi-platform orchestration — Meta, Google, YouTube pre-roll, and retargeting layers all running simultaneously.
• Brand integrity — every ad, every headline, every piece of creative had to reflect the weight of the artist’s name.

Approach

We operated as CIRCA’s in-house digital marketing team — embedded in the day-to-day, connected to the artistic programme, and responsible for turning each artist commission into commercial results.

Paid Media Architecture

The campaign structure was designed for precision, not reach. Rather than broad awareness spending, we built layered campaign architectures:

• Sales campaigns targeting high-intent collectors in key markets — budgets concentrated where the data showed conversion intent.
• Retargeting campaigns recapturing users who added prints to cart but didn’t complete purchase — a critical layer for high-value products where buyers often deliberate.
• Traffic campaigns split across three distinct audiences: general awareness, previous ad engagers, and lookalike audiences modelled on existing customers.

Each layer had its own budget allocation, creative strategy, and success metrics. This wasn’t boosted posts — it was structured media buying with real-time optimisation.

Conversion Infrastructure

Before we could sell at scale, we needed measurement at scale. We verified CIRCA’s domain and configured the Meta Pixel, set up goal funnels in Google Analytics to understand drop-off points, and maxed the Conversions API through Shopify’s Facebook sales channel. Every purchase was tracked, attributed, and fed back into campaign optimisation.

Geographic Strategy

Italy emerged as the top-performing market — a finding that reshaped how we allocated budget across subsequent campaigns. The US and UK followed. Over 22 countries generated purchases, with targeting refined continuously based on conversion data rather than assumptions about where art collectors live.

Cross-Platform Execution

The Marina campaign ran across Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Google Display and Search, and YouTube pre-roll — each platform serving a different role in the funnel. Meta drove the bulk of direct-response conversions. Google captured search intent from people actively looking for Abramović prints. YouTube pre-roll built awareness with video creative that matched the prestige of the work.

Creative Solution

The creative had to do two things simultaneously: stop someone scrolling and convey that this is a serious, limited, hand-signed artwork from one of the most important artists in the world. That tension — urgency and gravitas — defined every asset.

We worked with CIRCA’s creative team to adapt the campaign visuals for paid media formats, ensuring the work maintained its integrity at every aspect ratio, on every platform, at every scroll speed. The creative wasn’t treated as a variable to test — it was treated as an extension of the artwork itself.

The result was a campaign that felt considered, not salesy. Collectors responded because the ads respected their intelligence and the artist’s legacy. The conversion rates reflected that — people didn’t just click, they bought.

Results & Impact

The Marina Campaign

• £880k+ in attributed sales across all channels.
• 50x return on ad spend across Meta and Google.
• 5+ million paid impressions served globally.
• 2.4 million people reached across target markets.
• Thousands of purchases across 22 countries.
• Italy led market performance, followed by the US and UK.

The Broader CIRCA Partnership (2022–2025)

The Marina campaign was the headline, but it was built on three years of infrastructure, learning, and trust. Over that period, we managed paid media campaigns for CIRCA’s full artist programme:

• Ai Weiwei — print campaigns with structured Sales / Retargeting / Traffic architecture.
• Olafur Eliasson — targeted strategy to deliver 500 additional print sales before year-end.
• Agnes Denes — print campaigns and AR filter promotion.
• Pussy Riot / Nadya Tolokonnikova — direct collaboration with campaign partners.
• ARCA, Laurie Anderson, Kembra, Frank Bowling — solo product campaigns across the roster.

Each artist campaign built on the data and learnings from the last. The paid media infrastructure wasn’t rebuilt each time — it was refined, compounded, and sharpened.

Testimonials

When the engagement ended in March 2025, CIRCA’s leadership offered something more valuable than a case study:

“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

“I’ve witnessed the impact, influence and value you’ve brought to CIRCA.” — Adam Saletti, Executive Director, CIRCA

Three years. Ten world-class artists. One print campaign that returned fifty times its investment. And a farewell that included a gift waiting at the studio.