It was a rough year for the product launch this time around – with the pandemic resulting in almost worldwide lockdowns, gathering a crowd of people to witness the unveiling of a new project was pretty impossible. But could virtual launches pack the same punch? Back in May, Amsterdam-based design studio Resn showed the world how to do it with their launch event for electric bike company VanMoof. The Dutch bike company was supposed to reveal its new X3 and S3 models at a live launch – and so tasked Resn with creating the next best thing when that was cancelled. The live event combined virtual renderings of the bikes, video presentations and interactive features. It took four weeks to create, had 6,000 live viewers and resulted in 4,400 orders. Resn creative director Simon Jullien told us that the key to its success was not in trying to “replicate” an in-person launch event, but instead focus on what digital could do best to replicate the feeling – not the event itself.