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Every marketer knows how hard it is to get people’s attention nowadays. It is harder than ever to capture people’s attention because so many brands are competing for your attention at so many different levels. Organising creative experiential marketing campaigns can differentiate your brand from others. Experiential events help to create fun, lasting memories.
Traditional advertising (newspaper adverts, commercials, billboards) all play in the same playground as more modern advertising methods, such as social media marketing or influencer marketing. Because of this, some brands find themselves lagging behind on the brand engagement front.
But what all these methods have in common is this: regardless of how interesting their visuals or copy may be, these adverts would still be engaging with audiences from a distance. We do not get to interact with the products in real-time, but we only see them in front of us and imagine what our lives would be like with the product in them.
Experiential marketers who build great experiential marketing campaigns are bridging the gap between a product and the customer – without them having to buy a product. And to the most creative marketers, the root word “experience” can be imagined in a whole bunch of ways. Below we discuss what experiential marketing is and the benefits over other marketing strategies.
So, What Exactly is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential marketing campaigns are straightforward – and as exciting as they sound. A brand that uses experiential marketing to introduce its product or service to the public invites people to physically take part in and experience it.
Experiential marketing campaigns are straightforward – and as exciting as they sound. A brand that uses experiential marketing to introduce its product or service to the public invites people to physically take part in and experience it.
Experiential marketing capitalises on the modern consumers’ need for experience rather than the traditional aggressive marketing strategies. The latter uses urgency and hard facts to deliver the message that people should buy their product. The former, on the other hand, focuses more on subtle marketing, making the people come to their realisations.
Experiential marketing is a strategy that engages consumers during brand activation. This is done by executing out-of-the-box marketing or event ideas that aim to drive consumers to their product or cause. From what the word suggests, experiential marketing uses life experiences to immerse customers in its products.
Whether this experience is free tasting, product testing, or a full-on game with prizes at stake, the heart, and soul of experiential marketing is the direct interaction between a person and the product you are selling. If a person comes out of that interaction feeling good or having added some value into their lives, you were successful! A few experiential marketing examples and events are:
- Product testing or tasting
- Pop-up installations
- Workshops
- Contests or live giveaways
Popular Types of Experiential Marketing
Product Showcase – These experiential campaigns are usually done at pop-up installations or kiosks, product showcase invites passersby to directly experience a product, whether it’s a small delicious food to try or a free session to use the device they sell.
Business Innovation and Services – These experiential campaigns refer to when a brand engages its audience with something that solves a real-world problem. An example would be a park shed or bench for parkgoers to take a break.
Mega Events – These events focus on attracting the masses, gathering influencers, public figures, celebrities, and media exposure. These events might last for several days.
Guerrilla Marketing – This marketing primarily relies upon unconventional methods, surprises, creativity, and risks, and these marketing campaigns are low-cost but attract a wide range of audience.
Downsides of Experiential Marketing
Though experiential marketing has been hailed as highly effective at driving many companies’ sales through the roof, it also has its downsides. Experiential marketing is typically done through large events, concerts, walk-in booths, and many more. The bigger or the more colourful the event, the better the impact.
This all sounds well and good for the company, but it does take a toll on the environment. With travel emissions, wasted food and drink, and non-biodegradable displays, many experiential marketing events have become the biggest contributor to the planet’s waste.
But is experiential marketing really the be-all and end-all of smart marketing strategies? Do we have to succumb to environmentally harmful methods just to sell? Is there a better alternative?
What is Brand Activation?
One of the most common buzzwords in experiential marketing is ‘brand activation’. Brand activation refers to the launching of a product or service, whether it is a completely new product entering the market for the first time, or a new innovation by a company that has been around for a while.
Brand activation or brand experience marketing involves setting up a proper event that draws attention and invites people to try out a product. If you have seen brands that set up a mini-concert or any other type of mini-event in a public area, chances are it’s a brand activation. A successful brand activation sparks curiosity and engages with people is entertaining whilst helping to raise brand awareness.
The Benefits of Experiential Marketing
Covering every possible marketing strategy is a great practice for any business. Benefiting 100% from the plan you implement to raise your audience is crucial for a company to create its branding awareness. The benefits of experiential marketing can be consumed and implemented in a business. Below, we apply a few advantages that we can take from our best experiential marketing campaigns.
It Helps You Establish a Connection With Your Market
Experiential marketing is an immersive marketing strategy that can open up great opportunities for marketers to establish a connection with leads in real-time, no matter how brief. When they try out your product, you see their reaction first-hand and can talk to them (gaining instant feedback) about what they think and feel about your product & company.
It serves as a great reminder that sales are not just numbers. Successful sales can also be people whose lives are changed by having your product be a part of their daily experience.
It Helps You Cover All Bases
When it comes to marketing, you want to cover as many bases as possible. The key to successful brand engagement and loyalty is being as memorable as you can be. To some, it is your newspaper advert they lingered on. To others, it is your company jingle they can’t get out of their head.
With a good marketing strategy and experiential marketing campaign, fun and lasting memories created at your event are why they won’t forget you. This makes their experience with you so personal, whether they stuck around for five minutes or a full hour. Plus, if you are extra creative and original, other people watching or hearing about your cool brand strategy will have their interest captured as well.
It’s an Opportunity to Solve People’s Problems.
With today’s many technological feats, there are creative solutions to society’s problems that your brand can participate in. For example, the problem of using non-renewable energy to power up our cities has been hurting our environment.
However, with solar power solutions slowly gaining more attention, inventions such as a smart solar bench that directly collects energy from the sun will capture a parkgoer’s curiosity as it provides phone charging. This is an awesome brand activation opportunity you should grab!
How Eco-Renewable Energy Does It
Eco Renewable Energy has found a way to strike a balance between effective and experiential marketing. By taking a closer look at events and activations, we came up with steps on how we mitigated the environmental dangers of experiential marketing. For starters, we—
1. Prioritise Sustainable Alternatives
The first and most important step towards any major changes is to commit to it. In the same way, you must first decide to commit to practising sustainability across all areas of your business.
Going in with this mindset makes everything else easy. Once you have made this decision, it is easier to prioritise sustainable alternatives. Engaging with clients through phones or video conferencing, for instance, feasible ways to minimise the environmental impact of your experiential marketing.
At Eco Renewable Energy, we came up with Energy Floors and WeWatt Energy Bikes as sustainable alternatives to the typical experiential marketing methods.
Energy Floors
Energy Floors are used by most of our partners for their brand activations and experiential marketing events. Create kinetic energy from a jumping crowd, the floor lights up in sync with the movements and activities. No energy is wasted since all you need is a crowd and some plug-ins to make it work. These innovations help us in organising sustainable events successfully.
Memorable? Of course. Fun? Even better!
WeWatt Energy Bikes
Made from mostly recycled materials, our WeWatt Energy Bikes are assembled by people with disabilities. Social inclusion is another aspect of sustainability that most companies seem to overlook.
These bikes make for great exhibition stands, brand activations, and experiential marketing events. Unique? Definitely.
If you want to know more about sustainable alternatives, you can check out the Event Ideas and Brand Activation Page on our website.
2. Focus on Optimistic Messages
Most people are easily deterred by uncomfortable or distressing messages. Instead of focusing on fear-based messages, marketers should lean towards positive and empowering messages. Optimistic messages are found to be more long-lasting than ones based on fear and negativity.
This is especially true if your business includes sustainable products and services. The message behind sustainability is foreboding at its core, but we should veer the focus toward the hopeful rather than dwelling on the pessimism.
3. Invest in Green Branding and Sustainable Practices
Sustainability is a great way to distinguish yourself from other companies. It also makes you stand out from other companies. Most sustainable practices help the planet recover and heal, or at least keep the environmental repercussions at bay.
Investing in green branding and sustainable practices will not only give you many returns in the long run, but it will also etch your company in the minds of the many people who support the same cause. A green brand can also generate a better reputation, brand equity, and increased profits. Sustainability is the future. Don’t get left behind.
Eco Renewable Energy Has Pro-environment Experiential Marketing Solutions for You
If you want to switch to sustainable practices but don’t know how to start, you need a sustainability partner to guide you. Eco Renewable Energy is steadfast in its mission to assist brands and event companies in Sydney in transitioning or maintaining their sustainable practices. With our range of innovative, sustainable, experiential marketing tools, you can take your sustainable efforts to the next level. The proper use of our WeWatt Energy Bikes and Energy Floor will surely turn your typical marketing strategies around.
Do some sustainable experiential marketing ideas? Our team is ready to assist you in bringing your ideas into reality. We bring your ideas into reality by creating customised projects. We will need all the help that we can in healing our planet. This is just the first step among many. For more enquiries on sustainable experiential marketing, brand activation, and marketing events, contact Eco Renewable Energy, your sustainability partner.
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