User experience, influencer, snackable content, SERP…
If you’re in the marketing world, you’ve likely heard most, if not all, of these buzzwords.
Similarly, experiential marketing, another marketing buzzword, has been gaining increased
recognition over the last decade.
What is Experiential Marketing?
Put simply, experiential marketing brings a live experience to consumers during which they can
interact with and learn about a brand. Eventbrite provides a great overarching definition:
“Experiential marketing is a strategy that engages consumers using branded experiences… the
idea is to create a memorable impact on the consumer. One that will inspire them to share with
their friends both online and off. These experiences could include an event, a part of an event,
or a pop-up activation not tied to any event.”
The idea behind experiential marketing campaigns isn’t new. In the late 1970’s, Miller Beer (now MillerCoors) used events such as concert promotions and the Miller Lite Taste Challenge to bring a memorable experience to a variety of key demographics.
As predicted by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in their 1998 book The Experience Economy, the modern consumer doesn’t just want a product, they want a memorable experience.
Today, The Experience Economy is known for establishing a theoretical foundation for experiential marketing. As Christopher Korody artfully summarizes, Pine and Gilmore anticipated that “businesses would form to orchestrate memorable events and the individual’s memory of their experience would be the deliverable.”
So what has contributed to this shift in marketing strategy?
For starters, social media has played a large role in advancing the gains made by experiential marketing. Every company is after brand awareness – companies want people talking about their product/brand, and social media gives people the ability to do this with the touch of a button on their smartphones, whenever and wherever. Not only is this a highly inexpensive form of advertising, it’s also effective, authentic, and personal, as the individual can share their branded experience in the moment, to hundreds of people who are likely of a similar demographic to them.
As Jonathan Edwards, the Strategy Director at Sledge, a UK experiential marketing agency puts
it:
“Advertising tries to persuade me – but a good experience also gives me a reason to persuade other people.”
For experiential marketers, this means that although experiential events may reach less people directly than a traditional ad campaign, the attendees of the event can help create brand awareness through social media, which has the potential to reach just as many, if not more people.
Another reason behind the growth of experiential marketing is that stiff competition in saturated markets means that companies are continuously on the hunt for new ways to stand out.
On the other hand, consumers have more options than ever before, with the majority of products now highly accessible through online shopping. This allows the consumer to be more cautious when it comes to making purchases.
Additionally, consumers are accustomed to being bombarded with ads, making them easier to tune out and therefore, less memorable and less effective. That’s why a memorable, creative, and personalized experience is key to a successful modern-day marketing strategy.
What are the people saying…
Now more than ever, it’s all about brand loyalty… and experiential marketing is a great way to
harness that. There are even stats to back this up:
- 64% of Gen Z and 72% of Millennial consumers believe that brands should
provide personalized experiences. (Adobe) - 87% of brand-side marketers invest in experiential to effectively connect with
their target audience, a 30% increase from 2018. (Agency EA) - 88% of companies use their event marketing data to inform wider marketing
strategies and make other important tactical decisions. (Freeman) - 77% of marketers believe live events will be increasingly important to the
success of their brands over the next few years, and 62% of senior marketers
plan to invest more in live events. (Bizzabo)
Make Experiential Marketing Work For You
So what should experiential marketing agencies keep in mind when it comes to planning a successful, innovative, and immersive event? Here are a few key things to remember:
- Establish a baseline metric in order to measure your success post-event.
- Find your target audience and use the event to wow them – it’s important to consider what your audience’s interests are, where they’re located, etc.
- Maximize online engagement through the use of hashtags and unique photo opportunities.
Are you in search of a strong team to lead your experiential marketing strategy? Contact Efex
Marketing, an experiential marketing agency with over 10,000 successful activations under our
belt, to learn about our full circle impact.
