What Experiential Marketing Is & Isn’t Plus Proven Tips & Examples
The old spray and pray method of marketing, putting out ads and hoping that people respond will have less and less impact over time. eMarketer estimates than in 2016 17.8% of the US population used ad blockers and that number is expected to increase to 23.7% of the population by 2022. Couple that with low conversation rates for online advertising, it’s time to shift focus and more importantly budgets to other forms of marketing.
Experiential marketing may be the answer you are looking for if you want to create more engagement with and loyalty for your brand.
What experiential marketing is
At the heart of experiential marketing is well, experiences. More and more people are favouring experiences over material positions. So much so that the experience economy is expected to reach $8 trillion by 2030. One of the reasons the experience economy is growing so quickly is because people tend to feel happier over time about an experience they have had such as a trip with friends than the purchase of a material good such as a new sofa.
According to Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a professor at Cornell University who has studied the link between money and happiness there is a fairly simple reason for why we love experiences: “our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods.” “You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.”
When you think about your own life what are your favourite memories? I bet they involve times you spent with friends and family doing something fun.
Often times when we think about marketing our product or service our strategy is rather transactional in nature. We send an email to our customers letting them know they can get 20% off an upcoming sale. Transaction complete! Then we reappear when the next sale comes around.
Experiential marketing provides the opportunity for a brand to take up a precious space within a customer’s mind for a longer period of time. You are unlikely to look back fondly on that time you got a 20% discount but if a brand can provide you with a memorable experience you could remember it for a lifetime.
What experiential marketing is not
Experiential is not the same old tired event that you put on five years ago. Experiential marketing often gets mixed up with event marketing. But the two are different. Experiential marketing involves crafting two way interactions where people are actively engaged and interacting with the experience you created.
A conference where people sit and listen to the speakers you have brought is not the same as an experience like what lululemon puts on when it hosts yoga classes within one of its stores. Conferences like that can play a role in your marketing strategy but thinking about ways to get people actively engaged with your brand is where your focus should lie.
Why you should care about experiential marketing
Creating fun and interactive experiences is a great way to create long lasting memories within the minds of consumers. It is also the key to generating word of mouth. In the book Contagious the author, Jonah Berger writes that "word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20% to 50% of all purchasing decisions." You are not going to recommend a product to your best friend that you do not think he or she is likely to use.
A study by Nielsen showed that 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all types of advertising. The success of your organization is dependent on word of mouth. In industries such as skin care and phones, word of mouth is twice as effective as paid advertising.
Word of mouth is easier to generate when you are creating unique and memorable experiences for your customers.
Even if you only have a small number of customers interact with your experience that can be amplified many times over through word of mouth.
Experiential Marketing Tips for Success
Tap into the kid inside of you. What kind of experiences can you create that are fun and exciting?
Think more holistically about your customer. In addition to the problem your product or service is solving what other needs do they have? Can you create experiences around that? Apple offers classes, free of charge to teach people how to use Apple products for photography, coding, music mixing, and more.
Focus on storytelling. What story are you crafting? Is it one that people will enjoy experiencing and sharing with others for years to come?
Don’t forget to create an experience that your customers can actively participate in.
Try to create an experience that provides an emotional connection as these types of experiences are more likely to be remembered.
Experiential Marketing Examples for You to Learn From and Emulate
1. Adidas
To launch Adidas’ Ultraboost 19 sneaker the brand created an interactive event called the Adidas Boost Experience. It was a one-day event held in July of this year. The experience was "designed to boost your brain, creativity, and future."
The activities participants could enjoy included: a maze where people had to find their way out while wearing Adidas Ultraboost sneakers, a test to see how high one could jump and a seesaw to test the spring capacity of the sneakers.
All activities had to be conducted wearing the Adidas Ultraboost running shoes. Speaking about the experience, Sarah Hall a creative strategist that helped designed the experience said: "from a designer's perspective, we create so many spaces that are purely pretty because we want people to take a picture and that's the exchange." “[But for this experience] we want people to come and really learn something and push themselves a little bit. That's our hope when we do things like this, that we go beyond just a sprinkle pool."
2. Glossier
Glossier hosted a popup last year in a café in San Francisco where customers could eat fried chicken while shopping for Glossier’s beauty products. Creating an event like this that coincides with introducing new products or featuring products you already have in a new way can drive excitement and engagement. The café where the popup was hosted was painted in Glossier’s signature millennial pink. Customer purchases of beauty products came in unique packaging to make the visit feel even more special.
Glossier popup in San Fransisco
3. Equinox
Equinox, provider of high-end fitness clubs, recently launched its Travel Experience service. As part of the service it provides luxury fitness excursions around the world where customers can partake in a host of fitness experiences. One of the experiences includes a trip to Ethiopia that focuses on the history of elite running as well as a mindfulness getaway in India.
4. Coach
Coach launched their version of an interactive popup with a 6-day event in SoHo, New York last June. Called Life Coach this was Coach’s first brand activation outside of one of its stores.
There were four interactive rooms each with its own aesthetic that featured blank walls that visitors could draw on, tarot card readings as well as carnival games. One of the Instagram worthy rooms looked like a day at Coney Island. The exhibit was inspired by New York the city where Coach was founded in 1941 and no products were on sale.
Speaking about the event Coach’s Chief Marketing Officer said "we deliberately wanted to create a new environment and not have the limitations of a pre-designed retail space.” That way, guests “could roam throughout the spaces and be on a discovery mission and explore”. The goal? “That every single person that walked through it had a very unique experience and walked out of there with a sense of what Coach was about."
5. Vans
Vans created an entirely different form of experiential retail with its House of Vans concept. In September of 2018, House of Vans popped-up for three days in Toronto. The three-day installation included: a skatepark that was built for the event, an art show, a live concert, a community-based market featuring local vendors, a photography exhibition and a photography workshop.
The event also included “Get on Board”, an initiative focused on getting women to partake in the skateboarding culture by offering skateboarding clinics. All events and activities offered by the House of Vans were free of charge. Success of the concept is not based on sales but on creating a strong connection within the community.
According to Alex Auchu, Marketing Manager at Vans Canada: “if the skate industry is healthy, then our brand is healthy.”