Here’s one marketing gimmick you should take a crack at.
Despite being one of the lesser-known marketing strategies, experiential marketing is a powerful tool in building your brand image. Experiential marketing is a type of marketing strategy that makes use of engaging experiences or one-on-one interactions to create personal connections with consumers.
Experiential marketing is a complete sensory experience that aims to carve out a positive image for your brand. It utilizes creative and innovative techniques in the form of trade shows, live performances, immersive experiences, and product showcases to elicit excitement and enjoyment among target consumers.
Here are three main reasons why you should incorporate experiential marketing in your next campaign:
It allows consumers to see the value of your product.
Experiential marketing provides consumers a better understanding of your brand. This marketing tactic allows people to interact with your products and services, explore its features, and discover its practical use in their lives. 65% of people who attend experiential events admit to developing greater knowledge and appreciation of brands. Indeed, for people to recognize the value of your products or services, you have to allow them to experience it first-hand.
IKEA, for example, hosted a massive sleepover in 2011 at their warehouse in Essex, United Kingdom. Out of the 100,000 aspirants, 100 people were given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend a night inside their famous store. The attendees were given goodie bags filled with towels, sleeping masks, and slippers. They were given access to IKEA’s lounge areas where they had free manicures and massages, and their dining sets where they had their evening snacks.
IKEA even hired experts to help attendees choose the perfect mattress to achieve the most comfortable slumber. That gave participants a first-hand experience — and a memorable one, at that — of their wide range of house fittings and furniture selections. From their bedding items to their dining collections, participants were able to test out the excellent quality of IKEA’s products.
Experiential campaigns provide an avenue for consumers to see how your offers can suit their needs. You don’t need to employ aggressive marketing tactics to yield favorable results. When consumers discover just how dependable and useful your products are, they won’t think twice about grabbing their wallets. Once you can establish your credibility with your consumers, then you can create authentic and lasting connections with them.
It extends your social media mileage.
Experiential marketing is a cost-effective way of increasing your online reach. Since this marketing technique encourages participants to share their exciting experiences on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, you get to ramp up your online presence for free. That is a powerful tool in building brand awareness for a broader market.
Netflix, for instance, is a brand that knows how to make viral experiential campaigns. In 2016, Netflix cashed in on the popularity of Snapchat’s face-swap feature. The popular streaming service installed different posters of Netflix series in key areas in France, specifically near schools and shopping centers. People were encouraged to use the Snapchat app to swap faces with their favorite stars from hit TV shows such as Orange Is the New Black, Narcos, House of Cards, and Daredevil. Many people took part in uploading their pictures and using the #NetflixSwap. This campaign amassed 60,000 participants in the entire country. By capitalizing on trends and technologies in their experiential campaign, Netflix was able to launch a free plug of their services and gain millions in global exposure.
Don’t forget that in launching a successful experiential campaign, you have to choose a suitable event center to mount your brilliant concept. Make sure to capitalize on rising technologies to make your campaign more impactful, meaningful, and a lot enjoyable to your target audience.
It encourages consumers to be fully engaged with your brand.
This marketing gimmick is the ultimate sensory experience. It activates all your five senses, making it more enjoyable, memorable, and impactful to your target audience. If you want to become a brand that sticks, you have to know how to pique people’s imagination and stimulate their senses.
Sprite is a classic example of a brand that knows how to craft a successful multi-sensory campaign. In the summer of 2012, Sprite installed giant soda dispensers at a particular beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With a campaign slogan of “Refresh Your Ideas,” they provided reinvigorating cold showers to beachgoers. That is their way of giving people some “refreshment” amid the summer heat. This experiential marketing was a blockbuster hit, enjoyed by children and adults alike. It even paved the way for Sprite to garner a total of 10 million fans online. The Sprite shower campaign was also launched in Hawaii, North Korea, and Los Angeles. No wonder Sprite is such an iconic brand; they are pros when it comes to crafting memorable and fun experiential campaigns.
So, if you want to increase your brand awareness, boost your brand image, and extend your media mileage, then it’s time to incorporate experiential marketing in your next campaign plan.
