Experiential marketing is all about creating positive associations between a brand and an experience. This means that marketing agencies fabricate commercials, ads, events, etc that speak to a person on an experiential, emotional level.
Simply put, experiential marketing: is to Associate a brand with a (generally) positive experience.
- So why should we consider experiential marketing?
- Allows communication on a personal level
- Has much more potential than other marketing strategies
- Increases brand loyalty
- Can be very cost effective
- Makes a brand stand out in an information saturated market
Let’s use examples to illustrate how beneficial experiential marketing can be when it is executed properly, no matter if it´s personalised t-shirts, energy drinks, or a tv serie what you are announcing:
Red Bull: make it easy for the media to talk about you
One of the most popular experiential marketing exercises ever is the Red Bull Stratos campaign. In case you live under a rock, the energy drink sponsored the world-record attempt of Felix Baumgartner to skydive from the highest elevation ever. Red Bull helped by making it extremely easy for journalists to tell stories of its triumphs, including a dedicated website where media people could download materials if they registered.
Samsung: Encourage people to come back again and again
For the London Olympics, Samsung set up a series of brand experiences dotted around London’s hotspots that ran for about two months. There, visitors could stop by to play with the latest model of their phones and tablets, plus check out the special Olympics app they had for the Games. On top of that, Samsung gave people a major incentive to come back every single day — they could win the latest Samsung mobile and a trip around the world. All they had to do was collect pins every single day from the stand.
Adidas: Invite special guests
Adidas created a pop-up store called the “D Rose Jump Store” in London. Why D Rose? Well, because professional basketball player Derrick Rose was on hand, of course! He challenged fans to see if they could win a pair of free trainers. All they had to do was take them off a shelf…that was 10 feet in the air.
There is a lot of potential in experiential marketing for brands to do something that their customers will really remember. If you can come up with a clever idea, you’ll have a fantastic way to make your brand truly unforgettable for customers.
