Why Experiential Is Almost Everything: 4 Activations To Look Up To

The end of 2017 is a great time to start experimenting with experiential marketing activations. What does that mean? It means that the most effective marketing campaigns will go beyond the screen and out into the real world. Customers will get a chance to see brands in a new light and take part in something far more memorable than a great post or even a viral video.

Experiential marketing is defined as any event that brings the brand and consumers together in an interactive space. It's a 4D experience because it involves space + time and can engage all five senses.

Some of the most common types of experiential marketing include teams that give out free samples on the sidewalk, a marketing stunt that draws a crowd, or a large-scale event where consumers try out something they've never imagined before.

But brands beware: providing an exceptional experience is just the start. If marketers don't have the right mindset around delivering that experience, they won't be able to measure them, prove their worth or replicate them. Along with an emotional experience, these activations also require the right set of tools.

Take a closer look at four of the most original and effective experiential marketing campaigns in recent years.

1. Redefining Weight

Everyone is familiar with free samples at grocery stores. However, Lean Cuisine's modern twist came from their #WeighThis campaign.

Instead of just giving away free samples of Lean Cuisine meals, they set up a series of “scales” at Grand Central Station in NYC. These scales didn't measure pounds, though; they measured life accomplishments. Lean Cuisine invited people to write down how they wanted their lives to be measured. The participants went on to write down things like “Going back to college at age 55” and “Being the sole provider for my children.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYUiLxoJFA

Without tasting or promoting Lean Cuisine directly, the company got the public excited about the brand's messaging and encouraged them to share their experience using Lean Cuisine's hashtag #WeighThis.

On their site, Lean Cuisine announced, "The campaign earned us the #9 spot in the Ad Age Viral Video Chart, achieving 6.5 million views within the first week, and resulting in a 428% increase in social mentions and a 33% increase in positive brand perception. The campaign garnered more than 211 million impressions and was featured across 680 media placements."

Why it worked: Lean Cuisine identified the emerging trend of cultural messaging around positive body images and motivational personal stories. Lean Cuisine allowed the message, not the brand, to take front and center in the experiential marketing campaign. As a result, their brand was viewed as supportive instead of opportunistic.

2. The Captive Audience

Audience members at Coachella have a distinctive set of attributes. For marketers, this is an ideal time to try out new ideas on those who have self-selected into a restricted space and come in with a positive experience of getting up close to the artists they love.

Would you expect an old-fashioned computer manufacturer to score successful marketing coup with this segment? Incredibly, HP delivered, with an 11,000 square foot projection dome filled with air conditioning, cushy seats and a mind-bending digital show on the walls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq_2dq4OyM

For concert-goers, it was the perfect retreat where they could cool off and relax. They immersed themselves in an exciting abstract film that toured the world and the human body. They could finish up by designing their own kaleidoscopes using HP gaming systems, which they shared with their private online networks. It was certainly a high-dollar campaign, but it bought free press coverage on digital media and across social media, along with positive brand associations within an influential spending segment.

The dome included tons of activations that blended seamlessly with the atmosphere. Among them were a station where people could alter the dome's display using an HP gaming laptop, and another where they could design their own kaleidoscope using another HP product, intended to appeal to students and creative professionals.

Why it worked: Counter-programming is a powerful and underused strategy, especially around larger cultural events. In the heat of the summer, in an environment where emotions run high, HP ran a campaign around cool temperatures and cool images. That compelled consumers to share their surprising experiences along many social channels.

3. Raising a Glass

The simplest of experiential marketing campaigns can be the most emotional. Tours of the Jameson Distillery in Dublin, Ireland, all end with a communal toast. This type of event is very “of the moment” and emotional, both highly personalized and widely inclusive. The only costs associated with it are the whiskey samples and the time of the tour guide. Tourists were encouraged to film it on their phones, post it to their profiles and write reviews on online travel sites. Digital turned a moving personal experience into a global campaign built by customers, for customers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMpZRV2KKNY

Brainstorming creative and performative displays that use employees instead of actors makes the brand more relatable, more relevant and more worthy of a story that customers will share on social media.

Why it worked: People are willing to spend enormous premiums for bragging rights. Society is moving strongly in the direction of preferencing experience over objects, and social bragging is a big part of that. An experience worth bragging about doesn't have to be expensive if it is moving and personalized.

4. The Color of Surprise

Crayola is always updating their colors to sync up with evolving customer demand, but this time they made a game of it. On this year's National Crayon Day (March 31), Crayola planned to retire a color. Rather than deal with the wrath of unhappy customers after the fact, they encouraged people to vote for the colors they wanted to keep by posting their favorites on Facebook.

One eagle-eyed customer spotted the answer at an early store display on March 30. That could have been a PR nightmare, but Crayola played along, saying the color (Dandelion) was just eager to retire. They wished him well and ended up with a huge win on social media in terms of shares, reposts, likes and conversations.

https://twitter.com/crayola/status/847501880242585602?lang=en

Why it worked: Life is hard, marketing shouldn't be. Fun and professionalism go hand in hand for experiential marketing campaigns that excel, in roughly equal amounts. At the ideation stage, marketers should actively "play" with the products or services they are selling. Discover the fun at the heart of it that will appeal to consumers at the pre-cognitive level. Let that guide the formation of experiential marketing proposals.

Activations: The 2018 Experience

Experiential marketing delivers stronger impressions and more active engagement. The Event Marketing Institute’s Consumer Survey Report found that:

• 98% of consumers are more inclined to make a purchase after an experience (Tweet this stat!)
• 74% of consumers have a more positive opinion of a brand after an event (Tweet this stat!)
• 65% actually purchased the product or service at the event, up from 54% the year before (Tweet this stat!)
• 70% of experience participants who made purchases at the event became regular customers (Tweet this stat!)

Perhaps the most valuable outcome of all is that 96% of consumers who participated went on to discuss the brand with friends or family members, amplifying the marketing reach many times over.

While great experiences involve emotion, great experiential marketing involves measuring and proving your impact as a brand. For the consumer, it may start with the heart, but for the brand it starts with the right mindset about how to deliver an awesome experience. The best way to be memorable is to provide a seamless experience, from the moment a consumer first interacts with your brand to the last message they receive, no matter the channel.