When people think of your brand, what do they associate it with? As a marketer, your likely answer might be ‘reliable world-class solutions or services’. Not an emotion.
But B2B has begun to recognise the weight emotion carries in the decision-making process, and this has raised the profile of experiential marketing – a popular buzzword at the moment. The idea of experiential marketing is that it goes above and beyond simple events by providing a creative and immersive activity or stunt – not just relating to a client or prospect on an emotional level, but causing the emotion in the first place.
“There’s a lot of research that shows an experience is one of the most lasting memories that you keep in terms of retaining something,” says Bruce Starr, partner at experiential agency BMF Media. He says experiencing something can help you retain 90% of what you learn, as opposed to 30% via reading, and 50% through being taught.
The most popular – and most obvious – way of eliciting memorable emotion like this is from events, such as a pop-up shop, an installation, a stunt, a trade show, or a conference.
For Workfront it was themed escape rooms combined with a conference that really captured their audience’s attention. The software company knew they needed to do something different to tackle their high drop-out rate at events. And Bee Movie, Back to the Future, and zombie-themed events highlighting the problems Workfront could tackle were the answer.
“The benefit is getting air time with that prospect,” explains marketing manager Joanna Betés. “The reason why we wanted to do the escape room was so our customers could understand the challenges they faced.”
Workfront: Escape rooms
The first escape room experience was designed with a zombie theme. It highlighted the problems employees faced at work through team challenges, which they had to conquer to prevent themselves from catching a deadly disease. The conference that followed drew attention to Workfront’s research and its products as the solution.
The event was so popular Workfront carried out two more escape room conferences. The next one was themed around Bee Movie, with a film crew who recorded attendees in challenges. The footage was then edited and used to get in contact with attendees after the event.
The other escape room was themed around Back to the Future, complete with actors and outdated work gadgets. This tapped into attendees’ nostalgia for their younger days, and also made them aware of the updated tech Workfront provided.
“We saw it was a huge success and something very different. We had really good registration rates so we did it again,” says Joanna.
Does experiential equal expensive?
Enticing prospects with more than a simple conference creates the risk of becoming expensive. Although Joanna admits Workfront’s events – complete with props, actors and agencies – weren’t cheap, it did also deliver marketing its biggest ROI.
“You do have to be careful getting carried away with creative,” she warns. “You could spend an awful lot of money on these experiences.”
If you don’t have the budget you’d like, it doesn’t immediately rule out experiential for your marketing. Joanna says by keeping it simple, you can still achieve an experience for your prospects.
Balancing fun and objectives
Experiential marketing is very much a balancing act between fun and objectives; a campaign needs to fall somewhere between the two. The need to be creative can draw you away from your original objectives and budget, but putting your objectives front and centre can quickly drain the fun out of things.
Bruce says he’s seen the desire for events to live on through social media advocacy and ‘instagrammable’ moments eradicate thought to the rest of the experience.
“Some brands get so caught up in wanting digital and social interaction that they forget people are there for longer than a photograph,” he says.
Craig MacIntyre, director EMEA, says you need to ensure your experience is more than just a cheap trick for a photo moment. “Make sure you feel like you’re creating an experience that is empathetic to the customer and authentic to them,” he says.
Making memories with Marriott
For the 2018 SMR Leadership Summit in the US, which gathers sales executives from the Marriott hotel chain brand, the company wanted to do something experiential.
With the help of BMF Media, the hotel chain created 25 rooms of creative displays, sensory experiences and interactivity. Each room represented the personality of each of Marriott’s sub-brands, and gave attendees a photo opportunity to share on social media. This allowed sales attendees to understand the uniqueness of each sub-brand they sell, and advocate for the chain.
“That’s something that’s not a traditional approach to dealing with the sales audience. It’s not just consumers who want to have something that feels like it’s a memory worth photographing,” adds Craig.
Plan for every possibility
The idea behind experiential marketing is to leave your prospects with a memorable experience, but if not done properly it could be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
“You don’t want to create a bad experience,” warns Bruce. “If something goes wrong – people are treated incorrectly, are annoyed there’s a long queue to get in, or can’t get a drink – they won’t have a good time,” he explains.
The answer to alleviate this risk is planning for every possibility. This can be difficult to achieve when catering to a large number of people. “Trying to navigate 100 people round an escape room with the right logistics and timings is really quite tough,” admits Joanna.
It took Workfront months of planning to prepare for its events. It wasn’t just a case of planning on paper; they needed to be prepared for the unpredictability of the audience. “I see these immersive experiences, not as an event or conference, but more like a theatrical performance,” she explains. “We would rehearse the actors and the way it would work.”
Joanna is right to view experiential in such a way. Ultimately it’s about getting across your story and entertaining the audience. So if adding a few theatrics is the way to achieve that all important cut-through, then the investment will be worth it.
Dell hits the right note with device orchestra
Dell and BMF Media showed how a simple idea can still be really effective. Dell wanted to highlight the quality of sound in its hardware, and took the opportunity of a conference to do so. Each device was set up to play a different orchestral instrument. The devices all started playing at the same time and a Dell orchestra was formed. The idea provided both a visual and audio experience and captured the attention of many attendees, who began to crowd the stand.
“It was a totally different way of displaying something and creating this lasting moment that was really playful and joyful,” says Bruce.
3 take-away tips
- Know your audience. This should go without saying, but if experiential is something different for you, take extra care that it’s the right fit for your audience. What might work for one segment of your audience may not work for another.
- Don’t get carried away with creativity. You want your campaign to be fun and engaging but keep checking that it remains aligned to your initial objectives.
- Keep ideas simple. If you have a small budget or are testing the waters with experiential, keep it simple to start with. You can still create an experience.
