May 2012

How do you stop consumers in their tracks? And, ultimately, how do you make sure they keep coming back to you? Brand loyalty is the holy grail for most businesses and it’s the basis of what experiential marketing is all about — marketing that interacts with the consumer. 

To achieve that interaction, the marketing has to ‘interrupt’ the consumer in a real live scenario — whether that be in a supermarket, on the high street, or at an exhibition. The direct contact that the consumer then has with the product — using all five senses to experience it — forms the essence of how experiential marketing works. The big difference with traditional marketing techniques is, rather than telling consumers what the product features are, consumers are allowed to physically experience the product. This creates an emotional response that can heighten brand awareness and loyalty. 

The entire premise of experiential marketing relies heavily on the company’s ability to create a memory in the consumer’s mind that is attached to an experience. “If you think about a trip to the supermarket where shoppers are faced with so many products and little differentiation between them, companies can’t rely on making their product leap out so they need to attract the consumer to it. This is achieved by ‘interrupting’ the consumer’s normal shopping experience by literally placing the product into the shopper’s hands,” explains Claire Larquetoux, Director and Head of Media at Mazars.

What is vital to a successful outcome is knowing how to measure such a campaign and setting out in advance the right data to capture in order to conduct that measurement. “It’s key that a company knows who their target audience is. When you are creating an experience you really need to identify who you are doing it for as a first step,” says Larquetoux. “Identifying your target audience then drives the type of venue and geographical location you choose. Once you know the customers and what appeals to them then you can create the right type of event.” 

Some companies are nervous about investing in a marketing campaign which some would argue lacks quantifiable sales results. “It is one of the key barriers to this type of marketing. Monitoring results cannot just be about sales. This form of marketing is measured not just by sales on the day, but by recording how many people were stopped at an event or participated in it, by website traffic after an event, as well as informal feedback,” confirms Larquetoux.

In so many ways, social media and experiential marketing are the perfect mix, both being particular ‘children of their time’. Just using experiential marketing without whipping up the available buzz through social media networks is throwing away a huge string to your brand awareness marketing campaign — and the social networking element of it is the free part.

As for the rest of the costs, there’s no escaping the fact that spending money on a marketing campaign today for brand loyalty and awareness at some future date takes a not inconsiderable leap of faith. “Companies must take on board the fact that they may not get immediate payback from such a campaign. There’s also the risk of doing the wrong event in the wrong place, or that the event goes wrong in some way. But if a company plans ahead for a really smooth delivery on the day and establishes the means of measurement at the outset, then it’s a marketing tool worth consideration,” says Larquetoux. 

Cadbury photography by Jeff Moore: Cadbury Dairy Milk delivered generous helpings of chocolate joy with giant Magnificent Musical Chocolate fountain at Westfield London shopping centre.