Many people agree that social network apps are contributing to social isolation but the rise of experiential marketing is suggesting that the world’s foremost social networks may be allowing businesses to engage audiences in new and authentic ways.
These types of engagement focused strategies revolve around direct interaction with consumers, welcoming them into a multidimensional brand environment. Experiential marketing takes the role of the consumer from a passive recipient to an active participant in the brand experience.
4 Key Principles of Successful Experiential Marketing Campaigns
A2 Milk Experiential Marketing Activation
#1.) Experiential Marketing Integrates Sensory Immersion
Humans are driven by their senses. Sensory elements should play a large role in experiential marketing campaigns. By appealing to the consumer’s senses, you’re easily tapping into one of the most effective ways to encourage interaction. Make sure and take some time to consider how you can harness this powerful trigger for your brand.
What can these sensory elements consist of?
Toyota Hotel Tacoma – Experiential Marketing Activation
Clash of Clans Experiential Marketing and Engagement Campaign
Sight: They say that seeing is believing and there’s no doubting the importance of sight in experiential marketing. If you’re exhibiting at a music festival or say you’re hosting a pop-up shop on a high traffic street, the single most effective way to get consumers to engage is by developing a visually impactful display. This will catch the eye of passersby and attract consumers to your exhibition space.
Google Allo Experiential Marketing Activation
Hearing: Music can be a powerful tool. Communication through sound is a great way for a brand to strike a chord with consumers. Drive consumers to your pop-up shop using the sound of music, or play some video content with audio. This will create attention and will allow guests an easy way to find you.
Mezzetta Experiential Marketing Activation
Taste: It’s one of the most specific senses that humans possess. If you’re selling an edible product, take an opportunity to give your consumers an opportunity to get a taste. The changing tastes of consumers have vexed marketers for years. Changes in ethnic composition, attitudes of age groups, health issues, and convenience have led marketers to invest heavily in consumer insights and research to determine what it is exactly consumers want. Taste is the number one factor in buying food. If you give consumers an opportunity to try your products, they won’t forget their experience.
Hot Pockets Experiential Activation at E3
Smell: Did you know that the sense of smell is most closely linked with the memory more so than any other senses? Smells evoke old memories from your childhood. Smell can trigger in recalling a long forgotten event or experience. This is why it can be one of the most powerful tools for experiential marketers. Make sure to serve up some of those fresh products at your pop-up shop, or perhaps even spray fragrance around the event area to help keep that experience in the minds of consumers.
Microsoft XBOX Barbershop – NBA All-Star Weekend
#2) INTERACTION
Experiential Marketing can be essentially drilled down to one on one engagement between brands and audiences which makes the interaction an essential part of successful marketing campaigns. Ensuring omnipresence across platforms is critical, and thanks to a spectrum of tactics available when it comes to encouraging interaction finding the approach couldn’t be easier.
-Product Demonstrations are the most authentic way to describe your brand’s benefits
-Real time technology like live-streaming, social media and photo booths
-Online Interaction can get the community talking
Synchrony Experiential Marketing Activation at KAABOO Music Festival
#3) EMOTIONAL IMPACT
Experiential marketing is all about creating and initiating mutually beneficial relationships. Establishing an emotional connection is a crucial first step in making relationship like these work. Creating an immersive brand environment has come first and after that you can decide how to appeal to your audience’s emotional side.
-Making your campaign memorable will leave people talking after your event is over. Entertainment is a sure fire way to draw in crowds so concentrate on making things fun and unique
-Personal connections matter, with so many impersonal ads out there, experiential becomes a channel with the potential to increase the much needed personal touch. It’s important to hire-on the perfect brand ambassadors for your event.
-Harnessing the power of nostalgia where you can and embed your brand into your guest’s memories. This is a great way to trigger an emotional response.
Mezzetta Experiential Marketing Activation
#4) RELATABILITY
There’s no need for a barrier to exist between brands and customers. Brands are becoming more and more authentic by providing consumers them with face to face interactions as well as being vulnerable and open to listening. Experiential Marketing allows these sorts of opportunities to come to fruition organically. This in turn fosters authentic connections between people. Forget the pushy sales tactics, and focus on building an inbound awareness of your brand. This creates a relationship that feels genuine.
-Don’t forget about the importance of integrating authentic brand ambassadors that speak your language, they’re the ones that echo your corporate identity to consumers.
-Being relatable and accessible is the living embodiment of what a brand ambassador should be
Synchrony at KAABOO Experiential Marketing Activation
If you’ve got questions about experiential marketing, event production or creative technology contact BeCore Experiential in Los Angeles today!