Podcast Summary: How the Museum of Illusions Creates Viral Marketing

Marketing Trends — Host: Stephanie Postles | Guest: Andy Levy, CMO, Museum of Illusions

Date: October 15, 2025

Main Theme Overview

This episode explores how the Museum of Illusions, a rapidly growing global brand, uses experiential and viral marketing to drive awareness and emotionally connect with visitors. Andy Levy, its Chief Marketing Officer, shares playbooks for building “scroll-stopping” content, scaling location-based experiences, and lessons marketers from all industries (including B2B) can apply. The conversation spans localization, data-driven decision-making, AI in marketing, and the importance of emotional resonance in both in-person and digital experiences.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is the Museum of Illusions? [02:01–04:50]

• Brand Overview: 70+ locations worldwide, straddling education and entertainment with 80+ interactive exhibits per museum (analog, digital, and photo-op rooms).
• Goal: Make a global, yet often under-recognized brand, mainstream through unforgettable, share-worthy visitor experiences.

"We invite people to reimagine reality...reverse rooms, building illusions. I always say we're the biggest brand you've never heard of."
— Andy Levy (02:22)

2. Andy Levy’s Experiential Marketing Journey [03:58–07:09]

• Career Path: Transitioned from finance to entertainment/nightlife (Las Vegas), Cirque du Soleil, Dubai, Two Bit Circus, and finally to Museum of Illusions.
• Emotional Connection: Experiential marketing sticks due to the emotional impact and lasting memories.

"For me, there's just something about these emotional experiences. Every experiential thing is...emotional. Whether it's surprise and delight...you'll always remember that event."
— Andy Levy (06:24)

3. Scaling Awareness & Localization Tactics [09:24–14:13]

• No Universal Playbook: Adapts strategies for each city/country—partners with local tourist boards, commerce groups, PR agencies for connections and cultural insight.
• Highly Visual Medium: Focus on motion and emotional “FOMO marketing” on TikTok and Meta to entice attendance.
• Evolving Experiences: Showcasing refreshed content and leveraging “building illusions” for local relevance.

"We're a visual medium...It's got to be motion to display everyone's emotions. It's a FOMO experience because you want to stop scrolling when you see our content."
— Andy Levy (09:44)

4. Navigating Market Nuance & Data-Driven Adjustments [12:22–16:26]

• Market Differences: Targets and challenges shift drastically by city—tourist churn, seasonality, foot traffic, and even school holidays impact approach.
• Massive Data Utilization: Reliance on detailed dashboards (Power BI), ticketing data, weather correlation, and tracking local trends for constant iteration.

"It's a never-ending Rubik's cube of problem solving."
— Andy Levy (16:19)

5. Channel Surprises & Traditional Media [16:40–18:07]

• Influencer Strategy: Local influencer partnerships fuel organic and paid reach, often turning UGC into effective ad units.
• Traditional Media’s Surprise ROI: Broadcast radio remains surprisingly effective in certain high-traffic, public-transit cities despite the lack of direct attribution.

"Radio can work...you see that lift in website traffic, you see the lift in ticket sales, some brand health. It's a hot take, but...that surprises me the most."
— Andy Levy (17:38)

6. Search, SEO, AI & Local Discoverability [18:27–24:31]

• Adapting to LLMs: Intense focus on SEO for “things to do” searches; strategic influencer content aligns with popular search intent pillars.
• Structured Data: Investing in structured website schema to ensure correct aggregation by AI-driven search tools.
• Importance of Reviews: Velocity and sentiment of Google/Maps reviews strongly impact local rankings and discoverability.

"For things to do, you want to be on your maps pages...not just the amount of reviews or your quality score, but the velocity of reviews."
— Andy Levy (22:53)

7. B2B Marketing Lessons: Bringing Experiential Thinking to SaaS & Enterprise [24:31–31:38]

• Conference & Product Marketing: Even “boring” B2B events and tools need unique, memorable moments and experiences.
• Experience as Product: Every product, even SaaS, should focus on the emotional journey—onboarding, support, success touchpoints—not just features.

"Experiential is not the same as product marketing. I disagree. When you're marketing experiential, you are marketing the product, and the product is the experience."
— Andy Levy (27:56)

• Emotional Resonance in B2B: Memorable marketing makes the user the hero, even in fields like cybersecurity or CRM.

"It brings an emotion. It puts me as the hero in this story. I can see myself in this. It's funny. It's actually making me laugh. I don't hate logging in here because it just has something that's different and I remember it."
— Stephanie Postles (30:01)

8. Defining “Success” and Lessons Learned [31:38–37:05]

• Dream Outcome: Be the “experiential guy” marketers look to for successful, scalable launches.

"I want people to see our content and go, wow, I have to go there with my fill in the blank, family member...I want us to be the North Star barometer when it comes to experiential."
— Andy Levy (32:28)

• Lessons & Pitfalls: Understand local culture/sensitivities, be ready to pivot after missteps, don’t micromanage, and always block out time for focused work.

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Go into every project planning on being punched in the face multiple times."
— Andy Levy quoting Mike Tyson (35:47)

9. AI in Marketing Operations [38:09–44:45]

• How AI Is Used: Scheduling, media buying (PMax, Meta Advantage), scalable creative production (Celtra), and analyzing ticketing/performance data.
• Content Creation: AI helps with asset production and localization but needs creative oversight—template systems allow rapid A/B testing and adaptation.
• Future Challenges: Junior analyst tasks will be replaced by AI; new skills will focus on interpreting, challenging, and acting on machine-generated data.
• Data Integration: The need for intelligent systems to discover and score new data sources (e.g., emerging Facebook groups).

"We're on an unknown frontier here, and it's very exciting ... the possibilities of what we can discover and the speed to market really fascinates me."
— Andy Levy (44:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Power of Unexpected Virality
  • "You can put all your money and effort into hiring an influencer...and then you have these people just sitting there getting 40 million views."
    — Andy Levy, on UGC (49:33)
• Trusting Local Teams
  • "We listen to our local teams because they're the boots on the ground...their experience and their input is really important for us."
    — Andy Levy (37:54)
• On Passion in Marketing
  • "I think it's hard to market something that you don't believe in...Make sure that you're passionate about whatever you're marketing, because if you're not, it's just not enjoyable for anybody."
    — Andy Levy (47:55)
• Favorite Experiential Campaigns
  • "The Louis Vuitton wrap building in Manhattan ... but the other one, the movie 'Smile'—they planted the actors in the background of sports events, just smiling creepily ... minimal cost, high impact and people are like, what is this?"
    — Andy Levy (45:06)

Lightning Round Highlights [44:57–52:58]

• Campaigns Andy Wished He Did: Louis Vuitton Manhattan billboard wrap; “Smile” movie’s viral background actors (45:06)
• Marketer to Watch: Bryce Betts (Cirque du Soleil, Las Vegas Tourism) (46:30)
• Viral Exhibit: NY location “reverse room” UGC video—unexpected, simple execution went viral (49:42)
• If Not a CMO?: Would try being a general manager for a sports team for one year (52:07)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:01] — Museum of Illusions Introduction
• [03:58] — Andy’s Career Journey
• [09:24] — Localization & Playbook Development
• [14:31] — Data-Driven Planning
• [16:40] — Marketing Channel Surprises
• [18:27] — SEO, Search, and Reviews Strategy
• [24:31] — B2B/Experiential Marketing Lessons
• [38:09] — AI in Marketing Operations
• [44:57] — Lightning Round

Tone & Style

Throughout the episode, the conversation is lively, insightful, and practical, mixing personal anecdotes with actionable marketing insights. Andy is candid, occasionally self-deprecating, pragmatic, and always focused on authentic, emotionally resonant strategies.

Listen if:
You want cutting-edge insights on experiential, location-based, and viral marketing—or if you’re in B2B and want to infuse emotion and humanity into your products and campaigns.