What are Experiential Events and How do They Influence or Help Brands?
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Traditional advertising has become a major hurdle in trying to capture the hearts of customers. In reality, our lives today are characterized by an online marketing world in which the consumer is actively unable or able to stop seeing advertisements. Marketing managers face the challenge of establishing and growing an effective brand relationship by finding creative ways of telling the brand's story that builds trust and creates lasting relationships among consumers. The company's marketing strategy aims purely at creating experiential marketing. Experience marketing is a form of marketing that seeks to create unforgettable customer experiences that create deep emotional connections between the clients and the brand. It is the strategy used for the promotion of brand experiences and is the best way to increase customer retention, brand awareness, or improve brand awareness. It describes itself as the most simple method of marketing which enables the creation of memorable and innovative customer experiences.
Experimental events are a form of this marketing and are usually in person events that a brand has created in an attempt to generate an emotional connection with the consumer. Unlike the typical TV commercial, experiential advertising aims to engage with the customer directly in some aspect. These events include experiential meetings, conferences, exhibitions, tradeshows and corporate meetings. In all experiential events, participants should be engaged in measurable, action-oriented activities. Experience events provide consumers with real-time opportunities to directly interact with brands. The idea is to create a tangible and meaningful experience which will have greater value for customers and help to increase their chances of making a purchase. Experiential experiences are a great opportunity in marketing for boosting sales, with 65% of marketers using the strategy agreeing with this correlation with sales. When people hear of experiential events, they might think of large events that involve lots of people. Experiential advertising is usually involved in events like pop-up stores where even for a short period of time, a brand can invoke connection and offer customers a unique experience. Due to the global pandemic, many brands have had to shift or adapt how they plan or do their events while still meeting their marketing goals.
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What are some experiential marketing strategies?
Define the Brand's Goals for the Campaign:
The very first thing any brand should think about is how to best show their brand identity and purpose through their campaigns. This also allows brands to think about their budget and every role their employees will take on for the campaign so it gets done effectively and efficiently.
Look at the brands past Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Looking at a brands past KPIs can help a brand see how successful their other brand campaigns were and allows brands to pull from their past ideas and feedback.
Understanding who your audience is and what they want
Understanding audiences can allow brands to cater their marketing towards their target customers to create and increase brand loyalty and awareness.
Think of unique and different ideas
It is important for brands to use outside the box thinking for experimental marketing campaigns in order to set themselves apart from their competitors.
Create a marketing plan that uses multiple channels
Brands should use multiple marketing channels to reach multiple types of consumers and target audiences. Marketing channels can include social media, live events, etc.
Utilize the brands social accounts and digital marketing
With the rise of social media and digital marketing, it is important for any brand to use them both to further push their products and brand identity to increase sales. This allows the brand to reach more people and gain more influence. It also allows brands to produce and use user generated content, content marketing or raise awareness on their social media pages. Additionally, brands can use things like a branded hashtag or brand ambassadors to further their digital marketing goals.
Create systems that can measure how effective a campaign is
Brands need to create a system that can measure the metrics of a marketing campaign. For instance, many social media sites use consumer insights to measure how many clicks an ad gets in a day.
Always be flexible and expect the unexpected
Brands can not fully predict how the public is going to react to a marketing campaign. It is always good to expect the unexpected and be flexible because marketing is fast paced and always changing.
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How do I make an event experiential?
Give consumers something that they would like to see, and create activities that enhance perceived value and improve user experience by incorporating personalized amenities. Make preparing for an event smooth. Additionally, follow every pandemic safety procedure for your visitors and make them comfortable.
What are Types of Experiential Marketing Strategies?
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Product Showcases
Product Showcases involve brands letting consumers actually experience what the product does and has to offer. This has become an increasingly popular type of experimental marketing campaign.
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Immersive Experiences/Virtual Reality
This type allows brands to let consumers experience their products without using the physical version of it. With the rise in VR and digital technologies, this allows consumers to become apart of any immersive experience that the brand creates surrounding their marketing campaign.
Marketing Stunts
This is a content based marketing strategy that is used by brands with larger audiences. This content can be a digital marketing campaign that people can both share and create an interactive experience with users that will make them want to know more about the product and brand.
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Event Marketing
This is when brands use events to allow customers to interact with the brands products and specialists in person. These events usually feature multiple types of a brands products and allow customers to gain personalized advice or tips on how to best use the product.
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Brand Activation
This type of marketing campaign is used when a brand launches a new product or service. It allows customers to know how the new product or service works.
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Guerrilla Marketing
This form of marketing allows brands to surprise consumers. It can be received both negatively or positively so it is a marketing type that needs to be used carefully and well. When it is used well, it can be a great and unexpected form of marketing that can spark interest with consumers.
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Social Services
This marketing strategy involves brands using their brand power and products to solve a real life issue such as using proceed money to donate to a non profit. This tells consumers what the brand believes in and what their morals are. If the consumer matches those beliefs or morals, they will be more likely to purchase from them. This marketing strategy is more subtle than the others and typically customers will not see it as blatant marketing.
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What are the steps to creating a successful marketing strategy?
Focus on stories and not brands
Attractive booths
Cater to the all of the human body's senses
Encourage brand awareness
Gain consumer loyalty
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What Do Experiential Marketing Companies Do?
How do experiential marketers work? Since experience marketing is an approach to marketing which includes events and in person experiences, it is important to have experiential marketing companies that help engage clients through branded experiences. These companies work to create and plan experiential events and experiential marketing campaigns that match the goals and strategies of the brand and its products. An experiential marketing agency must know the brands budget, its product, strengths and weaknesses in order to create and build brand awareness effectively. They create an interactive way for consumers to experience what a product has to offer to get people talking.
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Ways to make Experiential Marketing Successful
Make sure you match the audience's needs to your objectives. This makes for a more enjoyable experience for them.
Make sure that the audience you want meets your target audience.
Create an unforgettable experience.
Invest in consumer involvement and follow the results.
Track the success of the campaign.
Courtesy of The New York Times
What to Avoid in Experiential Marketing
Not doing enough research or preparation: A event that is not well planned or well research will not be successful or appealing for customers.
Not utilizing current marketing trends: Not using current marketing trends will result in a campaign not being successful to todays consumers.
Not Budgeting Well: Figuring out the correct budget is essential to make sure the brand has enough breathing room to account for unexpected expenses and changes.
Not having a good location or staff for the event: The location of an event and its staff can make or break the marketing strategy. The event staff must be knowledgable about the product and its benefits. Additionally, the event location should be comfortable for consumers and increase their mobility.
Not focusing on the goal at hand: Events can often make brands get carried away and not focus on their initial plan or product. Brands need to supply a great event that focused on both their target audience and product sales so it can be successful.
Not following up: After an event, brands should follow up with the customers that were at their event to continue the relationship that was previously established . This will increase brand partners and loyalty.
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What are Examples of Experiential Marketing?
Business events, festivals, or awards ceremonies
Activities or kiosks at trade fairs or trade shows
Brand Retreats
A Physical Space like a pop up store
Free Samples of the Product
Real Life Examples of Brands Using Experiential Marketing Events and Campaigns
It can be surprisingly tricky when planning a great experiential marketing campaign. It must meet marketing objectives in an appealing environment and engage clients in a timely manner. Here are the best examples of creative experiential marketing:
Courtesy of Ads of the World
Kit-Kat's "Free No Wifi Zone"
What is free wifi if you can't get a connection to the Internet? The candy bar brand KitKat designed WiFi-free areas on outside surfaces at its premises in Amsterdam by blocking signals within the five meters of the brands benches. People looking for some time off could simply relax and talk to friends. This works because today, everyone has to be in contact with one another. In reality, many people would like to disconnect. KitKat's Wi-Fi-free Zone reminded everyone about taking breaks while giving people time to do so.
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Facebook's FacebookIQ Live
Facebook shares and Instagram shares are equally important in understanding the extent to which people use the platforms. This is the reason behind the FacebookIQ Live experience. During the time spent in this experience, the data was used in curating real-life stories which portrayed the data. IQ Mart : A "marketplace" setting illustrating the online shoppers' conversions when using social networking in making a buying decision. The café had another quintessential Instagram, packed with millennial-esque photos and people who snapped them — coffee artwork or anything like that. The campaigns were memorable and a memorable experience at that time.
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Vans' House of Vans
Recently, Vans hosted several pop-up houses in Skate Parks in major cities like New York and Chicago. The skating community provided a place where skaters could meet, chat, hear live entertainment and share stories. Vans utilized these skating park pop-ups to promote the release of its new shoes line honoring David Bowie. The Vans brand is the most popular shoe brand on the skateboard market. Pop up shops near and within a skate park seem a perfectly appropriate fit.
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HBO's Escape Rooms
In 2017, the TV network HBO create an escape room experience at SxSW based some of their shows. They used three connected escape rooms that were involved under one mystery. Each rooms were based on a different series and allowed people to be fully immersed in them.
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AirBnB's Fresh Prince House
The brand AirBnB teamed up with actor Will Smith and the owner of the house featured in the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" for the show's 30th anniversary. The house was available to people for $30 a night and had merchandise from the show placed in it to further engagement and participation from brands.
Courtesy of Newsweek
Tinders Pride Parade Event
The dating app Tinder created 30 foot slides called "Pride Slides" to be at the Pride parades in New York. The length of the slide was symbolic of the 30 states in the United States that do not have discriminatory laws against the LGBTQIA+ community. For every person that went down the slide, Tinder donated $10 towards efforts to pass the Equality Act in addition to providing free advertising on the app for LGBTQIA+ non profits. This is not as blatant as the usual marketing seen because it is supporting a community of people. This is an example of social service marketing and allows the brand to gain support by supporting another group.
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Lean Cuisine's "Weigh-This" Campaign
Lean Cuisine looked to the Internet and invited women to talk about their most important accomplishments rather than their weight. 244 of these responses were later painted on a miniature bathscale, which was used as an installation in Grand Central Station. It made the project become internet sensation by asking women to share their ways of weighing under the hashtag #WeighThis. The brand then create a promo video campaign of the women that responded to the hashtag. This campaign worked to push boundaries and challenge fans about their preconceived notions about women's bodies.
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Why do brands do experiential marketing campaigns?
Experiential marketing is the best way to increase customer retention, brand awareness, or improve brand awareness. Those who do these positive experiences will share them with others. Customers feel more emotionally connected to a brand and do not feel like they are being sold to. The most enjoyable experiences can be created by gaining the trust of a number of media outlets and influencers. Experienced marketing enables an organization to attract influential individuals who want to share its mission or values to a wider audience.
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What are the Benefits of Experiential Marketing?
Creating Personalized Marketing Engagement
These campaigns allows consumers to create a relationship with a brands by involving them in immersive experiences. They allow create a stronger emotional connection between the consumer and the product.
Creating Positive Connections
These campaigns let brands create positive connections with their customers and gain their loyalty.
Social Media Sharebility and Live Marketing
When consumers come to brand events that they enjoy, they are more likely to share their experiences live on social media to spread the word to others.
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Why Experiential Marketing Matters Today?
Experiential marketing can help build relationships and strengthen brand loyalty. It also allows you to collect valuable customer information that can be utilized to improve a marketing campaign. It's possible for a brand to use a video platform in their event to showcase a brand's message and to gain a digital audience through their video. A hashtag can help people to discuss the event with others. These events are important because the most enjoyable experiences can be created by brands gaining the trust of a number of media outlets and influencers. Experienced marketing enables an organization to attract influential individuals who want to share its mission or values to a wider audience. They also allow customers to fully engage and participate with brands and their products.
