Recess

Recess operates an experiential media and brand activation platform that converts physical community venues — fitness studios, college campuses, offices, residential communities and community events — into targeted, measurable advertising placements for consumer packaged goods brands. The company positions itself against traditional in-store demos and experiential events, which it characterizes as lacking targeting, scale and a link to sales, and instead applies media-style planning, targeting and measurement to product trial and consideration at the middle of the marketing funnel.

Campaigns are built in four steps: selecting the network, venues and timeframe tied to a brand's retail moments and priority markets; targeting using demographic, geographic and retailer-proximity data to match a brand's audience and its retailer's shoppers; distribution by trusted community members plus amplification across social, email, on-site signage and retailer calls-to-action; and closed-loop measurement of store-level sales data against a control group to report incremental sales, lift and iROAS. Recess also markets specific use cases including product launches, shopper marketing, brand awareness campaigns and rapid activation of expiring product inventory. Its network spans more than 10,000 venues across 35-plus community types in all 50 US states, with named venue partners including Crunch Fitness and WeWork/coworking spaces, and brands referenced in its published content including Rockstar, ZOA Energy, Sharpie, Poppi, Hero Cosmetics, Simple Mills and Goodles. [0]

Founding story

The company began at Indiana University in 2010, when Jack Shannon and Deuce Thevenow started Recess to organize campus-wide events, launching the Recess Music Festival in May 2010 with LMFAO and Mike Posner as headliners and expanding it to other midwestern colleges. The event later evolved into the Recess Music & Ideas Festival, pairing music with a startup career fair, entrepreneur speakers and a pitch competition, which drew investor interest from Mark Cuban. [6]

Business model

Recess sells brand activation and sampling campaigns to CPG marketers, monetizing access to a network of partner venues and communities. Brands buy venue-based placements much like media, with Recess providing a dedicated team for strategy, execution and reporting, plus omnichannel amplification (community social content, email, on-site signage, retailer CTAs). Since 2018 the offering has included a platform through which brands can search sampling and sponsorship opportunities using audience filters and geo-targeting. [0][6]

Revenue derives from brand-funded sampling and sponsorship campaigns executed across Recess's venue network, bundled with targeting, amplification services and sales-lift measurement. [0]

Traction

Recess reports a network of over 10,000 venues spanning 35+ community types across all 50 US states and publishes campaign outcomes including a 22% sales lift on GoPuff for a snack brand across 13 events in four days with a 56% coupon email open rate; a 338% increase in purchase intent for a fruit bar sampled at Crunch Gym locations; 69.9% post-sample purchase for a laundry brand's studio sampling; 1-in-4 sample-to-purchase conversion for a supplement brand and for a water brand (with a reported 196% increase in brand awareness in target markets); a 109% purchase-intent increase for a kombucha brand; 1-in-3 conversion for a plant-based energy drink in college housing; and 2,369 Walmart app sign-ups with 589 BOGO redemptions and a 24.86% sample-to-purchase conversion rate for a CPG air freshener launch. Its 2022 Series A followed a year of customer growth that added DoorDash, Milk Bar, Oakley, Mondelez and Red Bull. [0][6]

Latest developments

Dollar General selected Recess as its exclusive experiential media partner for the Dollar General Media Network (DGMN), an exclusive category partnership allowing advertisers to use experiential sampling to reach Dollar General shoppers in their local communities. [0]