The age of experiential marketing is upon us, with customer bases across all sectors becoming increasingly dissatisfied with traditional promotional strategies. Events are changing the B2C and B2B marketing games, as dynamic displays and interactive elements breathe new life into the world of advertising - and your business could be the next to benefit from the experiential effect.
At the Events Structure, we believe in the power of event marketing and our exhibition trailers and self-drive promotional vehicles could be the answer to your company’s sales conundrum. Today we’re taking a look at some of the most groundbreaking experiential marketing campaigns of the era - then we’ll fill you in on how your business can make its own promotional waves with the right marketing arsenal.
1. Samsung
Samsung’s 2012 Olympic Sponsorship gave birth to one of experiential marketing’s greatest feats - the Samsung Studio custom-built to promote the then spanking new Galaxy S3 and Note. Offering a series of intimate brand experiences throughout London, the campaign gave visitors a chance to engage directly with the product, with selfies taken on the S3 being transformed immediately into bespoke badges.
Following this experiential marketing win, the numbers very much validated Samsung’s efforts. With an average interaction time of 7 minutes and 45 seconds, 9/10 of visitors said they were more inclined to buy a Samsung phone - and 35% declared themselves honorary Samsung converts.
2. Mountain Dew
Effective guerrilla marketing is the holy grail of advertising, and Mountain Dew cracked the marketing formula with their Mountain Dew Enery tour. Targeting festival goers, commuters and passersby, this inventive guerrilla campaign saw 15 brand ambassadors travel across Britain with the mission to give sales a surge. And it worked. Thanks to their giveaways, competitions and experiential marketing prowess, Mountain Dew saw an 185% ROI - with 55% of consumers targeted making a post-tour purchase.
3. Nike
Nike’s 2009 Chalkbot campaign secured a 46% sales increase for the company - with their creative approach to experiential marketing the driving force behind this welcome spike. With the help of a custom-built robot, Nike imprinted Tour de France tweets along the event’s route - collecting images of the chalk notes and sending them back to the tweeters. This seamless integration of mobile and event marketing remains an experiential milestone, and a prime example of how lucrative this approach can prove.
4. Sensodyne
Making toothpaste sexy is no mean feat - but Sensodyne achieved just that with their Great Sensitivity Test. London’s Tower Bridge saw the company set up a three-zone area designed for pure, unadulterated product exposure. In the first, visitors found a free sensitivity check, complete with samples, prizes and demos; in the second, a colossal tooth-shaped sculpture ideal for some quick photo sharing; and in the third, the world’s biggest oral hygiene demonstration, where over 230 people were given expert dental maintenance tips.
This offbeat event marketing campaign saw Sensodyne hand out 6500 product samples, with 150 media mentions following this unique and informative event.
5. Red Bull
And finally, we arrive at the experiential summit. Red Bull is a brand renowned for blazing the way with their ever-ambitious marketing strategies, and the Stratos stunt is one that will forever remain a historically significant piece of advertising. Capitalising on Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking parachute jump from the Earth’s stratosphere, Red Bull’s name was plastered all over this historical moment, aligning the brand with science and popular culture forever.
What event marketing campaigns like this demonstrate is that an experiential approach and some out of the box thinking can go a very long way. At the Events Structure, we know what it means to stand out - and thanks to our range of self-drive promotional vehicles and exhibition trailers, your business can break the marketing mould.