Successful experiential marketing has become more than just hosting a one-time pop-up event or providing guests with a photo opportunity.
In “Immersive Brand Moments: Designing Experiences That Captivate and Convert,” an ADWEEK House group chat presented by National CineMedia, panelists chimed in on making events stand out.
“There has just still been a lot of pent-up demand from the pandemic,” Pinterest senior director of global brand experiences Judy Lee noted. “And now, spend is fully back with a lot of brands, and it’s just a great way to extend a brand campaign.”
Shannon Simpson Jones, co-founder of brand experience agency verb., also noted the resurgence, saying of experiential marketing, “It’s back in the mix in terms of being a critical component of the overall marketing plan. We always talk about reimagining how consumers experience and interact with your brand, and it’s important to not treat it as a stand-alone tactic or an add-on after the fact, but really making it a part of the entire plan throughout the process.”
“I don’t even like it as an add-on,” Lee added. “I like it as the core of the idea.”
What’s the plan?
When asked about the early stages of planning experiential campaigns, Jones said, “The first step in the process is really starting with your why, and it can feel really basic, but why are we doing this? … Let’s be clear about who it’s for.”
Avoiding the feeling of “same-old, same old,” is key, as well.
“I was a business-to-business marketer for many, many, many years, and I think we can all agree that it starts to become a little bit of a sea of sameness,” said Lee. “And so for us, our main B2B strategy was: How do we ‘unboring’ that experience? How do we make it even more interesting?”
Avoiding the ‘sea of sameness’
For Jones, successful events are a holistic brand experience.
She continued, “We all remember when it was all about Instagrammable moments, and you just really had to have a flower wall and a backdrop,” said Jones. “Now, consumers are looking for more than that. They’re more sophisticated. They see themselves as content creators. So how are we enabling them to share their story? How are we giving them a space and place to show who they are and find their people? How we design the experiences can enable that—whether that means getting a tattoo, coming for a meeting, having a giveaway, trying out something new—there are ways to build that into the space.”
NCM chief marketing officer Amy Tunick agreed, saying, “If you have a way for people to create FOMO (fear of missing out) and to showcase their interaction with the experience, whatever it might be, that’s really the most powerful connection point for whatever it is.”
Success stories
The panelists shared examples of their favorite experiential marketing campaigns that they were involved with.
Jones mentioned the “Barbie Dream House” initiative with Airbnb, saying that we are “going from these really bold, one-off experiences where very few people were able to experience, and now … we have places that are open for months.”
Tunick noted that NCM client e.l.f. Beauty ran a 15-minute film called Cosmetics Criminals tied with Mean Girls film. As part of the campaign it ran VIP screening events that drove the main KPI for that piece, which was earned media and getting influencers and press in the room, “but the content was the driver of that experience,” she added.
Pinterest caught the music festival vibe, with Lee saying, “This past year was our first year at Coachella, and we activated there because we found that people are the most creative version of themselves at festivals. So, we called our activation ‘The Manifestation,’ because a lot of Generation Z thinks of Pinterest as a manifestation application where they can be their most creative selves.”