On the dance floor, experiential marketing to normalize nicotine

The VELO brand of nicotine sachets from manufacturer British American Tobacco (BAT) launched "Echoes of Tomorrowland" on July 14, 2026«[1], A global campaign associating its brand with the renowned Belgian electronic music festival Tomorrowland. On July 17th, the first event took place in Ibiza, featuring a DJ set, a live broadcast from the festival's main stage, and social interaction. The campaign, supported by a study commissioned by the brand on young adults' need for "connection," illustrates an experimental marketing strategy that links nicotine consumption to a festive, musical, and community-oriented environment.[2].

When Tomorrowland lends its name to a nicotine brand

Velo claims the top spot in the European market for nicotine sachets, an estimate that BAT establishes based on market share by volume calculated in five countries for the year 2025. It is on this position that the brand built, this summer, a large-scale international communication operation, by associating itself with Tomorrowland, one of the most attended electronic music festivals in the world.

Presented as a global network of live events and synchronized broadcasts, the "Echoes of Tomorrowland" campaign aims to bring the atmosphere of the Belgian festival to audiences who cannot attend in person. Its first installment took place on July 17th at the Tomorrowland store in Ibiza, whose reopening for the summer season coincided with the campaign. For one evening, the brand took over the space, featuring a set by Ukrainian DJ Korolova and a simultaneous broadcast from the festival's main stage in Belgium. Access was by prior registration or by presenting a QR code at the entrance, bringing together, according to press releases issued by BAT, consumers, representatives from the British and Spanish press, as well as invited content creators from several countries.

At the entrance, an interactive activity was offered to participants: each received half of a handmade butterfly and was instructed to find the person holding the other half within the venue. This staged encounter was accompanied by a study commissioned by the brand, conducted between June 16 and 22, 2026, with over 2,000 adult nicotine users surveyed in the United Kingdom, Spain, Pakistan, Poland, and Austria. Its results, widely cited in press releases issued in several languages, indicate that 39% of respondents felt that it became more difficult to form relationships with older people. 30% stated that they associated the dance floor with a space for personal expression, and 61% said they were more inclined to express themselves when those around them did the same. 27 % of the 25-35 year olds also mentioned considering friendships formed at concerts as deeper than those formed in other social settings.

These elements are recounted in BAT's press releases by several voices associated with the event: DJ Korolova, the evening's headliner, describes the dance floor as a space where everyone can express themselves without judgment; singer Camden Cox recounts how easily strangers made contact thanks to the butterfly device; and Malky Brown, BAT's Global Head of Content and Partnerships, presents the initiative as a way to recreate, beyond the festival, the sense of connection for which it is renowned.

The festival and social connection as a framework for communication

This campaign reflects a trend already observed among nicotine product manufacturers, who favor creating worlds associated with music, celebration, and socializing rather than directly presenting their products. This approach also prevailed for a long time before the widespread bans on advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products. By partnering with a festival as widely recognized as Tomorrowland and by featuring figures from the music scene, the manufacturer of the Velo brand is building an image of freedom, authenticity, and conviviality around its brand, in which nicotine consumption is never explicitly mentioned but is always linked to a valued collective experience.

This strategy relies on transferring the festival's positive attributes: escapism, a sense of belonging, and shared emotion. These are associated with the brand simply through proximity, without any direct link being established with the product itself. Nicotine is neither promoted nor explicitly mentioned; it is simply present in the background of a world already imbued with positive meaning for its target audience: electronic music enthusiasts, primarily young adults. The study commissioned by the brand plays a similar role: by documenting social isolation and the need for connection rather than product usage, it lends the operation an air of credibility akin to research, when its primary purpose is to justify the marketing strategy deployed. The central theme—the difficulty of connecting with others in adulthood—is thus presented as a problem to which the brand offers a solution, when in reality it is merely a communication pretext constructed specifically for this campaign.

The butterfly concept extends this logic by giving a concrete and lived form to this promise of connection: the exchange between strangers, staged from the moment they enter the venue, allows each participant to personally experience what the study previously predicted, thus reinforcing the perceived coherence between the brand's message and the public's experience. The speeches by DJ Korolova, singer Camden Cox, and BAT's head of content then relay this same narrative in a more personal and credible way for the target audience, with the voices of popular artists replacing the more traditional brand advertisement.

In France, the manufacturer has already used this type of association between nicotine products and party themes to promote its Vuse (e-cigarette) and Velo (nicotine pouch) brands. A lawsuit against British American Tobacco France, concerning similar practices, was filed by the National Committee Against Smoking (CNCT) for online promotion of its vaping products. The judges correctly classified and condemned this type of advertising as illegal. The lower court's decision was upheld on appeal and then definitively by the Court of Cassation in December 2024, forcing the manufacturer to cease this misleading advertising.

©Generation Without Tobacco

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[1] Velo* y Tomorrowland lanzan "Echoes of Tomorrowland"", PR Newswire, published July 14, 2026, accessed July 27, 2026

[2] Nicola, Artemiou, Echoes of Tomorrowland Extends Festival's Culture of Connection to Ibiza with VELO, Verge Magazine, published July 22, 2026, accessed July 27, 2027

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