FORGING CONNECTIONS IN A CONSUMER-CONTROLLED MARKETPLACE
Twenty-first century consumers have changed the way they want to receive information. Gone are the days of telling and selling. Today's time crunched, technologically savvy consumers want an emotional, hands-on product connection. They research. They surf. They seek out information. During 31% of the day, consumers are using two or more media types at once-and 58% of the time, they're engaged in other activities while using media. Multi-tasking at its best. Yet while these consumers are hard to reach, recent DoubleClick and Yahoo! studies reveal that influencers and early adopters are most likely to research, spend time with emerging media, be open to influence, and become brand advocates. The idea of experiential marketing connects with this demographic by communicating the essence of the brand through a personalized experience. That experience transcends all audiences.
For Subway restaurants, HMH engaged customers at a whole new level by creating a contest inviting ideas for the perfect sub sandwich, using Northwest-inspired ingredients. Announced with a flight of humorous radio spots and a complete point-of-sale merchandising package, the contest gave customers a chance to become a sandwich artist. The winning sandwich, "The Smokehouse Salmon Select," was announced on local radio morning shows and sold at Subway for a limited time. In the six-week promotional window, Subway experienced its highest average ticket and highest average sales weeks of the year (see the case study).
Whether it's a product giveaway at a sports event, a concert brought to you by a major credit card company, or an interactive game booth at the mall, experiential marketing is the newest iteration of event marketing blended with product sampling. It blurs the lines between customer interaction and event planning and execution. Because your brand promise comes to life in a totally unique moment in the customer life cycle, it delivers on the brand promise in more meaningful and relevant ways. The result is deeper emotional ties to your product or service. Coupled with data, experiential marketing presents innovative opportunities to activate your brand strategy.
Keep these key points in mind for experiential marketing success:
- Integrate. Seamlessly integrate medium, message and product.
- Interact. Interaction is more important than exposure. Good thing, because while six network TV spots reached 80% of the 18-49 year old women in the U.S. in the late eighties, it would take 92 spots today. An experiential relationship with a brand will link a consumer to that brand in a more powerful, lasting way than a passive relationship.
- Implement. Using customer data, plan in detail an experience that will benefit both your company and your clients. Sell to those customers aggressively after their positive experience.
With that said, it's still essential to implement an umbrella of broad-based media to build a brand, ensure sufficient reach of message, and give relevance to one-to-one communications. With every marketing opportunity, we need to step back and consider the complete universe of customer touch points, ensuring that we not only provide awareness building efforts, but take a good look at ways to incorporate new media and experiential opportunities into our efforts. A more personal, relevant approach is an ideal way to cut through the clutter and activate your brand with local-level consumer-based connections.
1 Newspaper Association of America Advertising Report, February 2007.
