THE PANEL
Cameron Day business development, Iris Experience
Julian Pullan managing director, Jack Morton Worldwide
Hugh Robertson managing partner, RPM
Louise Taylor group account director, experiential and events, Capitalize
How do you define an experiential marketing campaign?
Hugh Robertson A campaign that places brand experiences at the core and amplifies the live contact through relevant media channels. These media channels allow the project to reach a wider audience and build a longer-term relationship and brand advocacy.
Louise Taylor Using live brand experiences to engage target consumers and getting them to believe in the brand, by creating personally relevant, credible and memorable experiences that activate all the senses.
Cameron Day Too much time is wasted trying to come up with over-complicated definitions of experiential marketing. Simply put, experiential marketing is a campaign that has a brand experience at the core, but uses additional media to meet the brand's overall objectives.
Why is it such an effective marketing tool?
HR Largely because of its ability to tailor the message, engage the consumer and immerse them in the brand's world, then maintain dialogue over a longer period. The medium has the ability to directly affect both consumer behaviour and tackle brand perceptions, in either a highly targeted way or as part of a mass-media campaign. It also generates content for mainstream media.
Julian Pullan Experiential marketing isn't about creating a standalone event. It's about creating communities of advocates by building a long-term relationship with your audience. To be at its most effective, it should be fully integrated with broader marketing campaigns.
What is the most effective way of measuring an experiential campaign?
LT It is crucial to agree smart objectives at the start of the planning process; understanding what you want to achieve from the activity up front ensures that the measures can be planned throughout. Experiential is one of the most powerful tools a marketeer has to shift brand perception among their target consumers.
Qualitative research conducted on-site can be compared with the brand's generic research, enabling us to measure the shift in brand perception among those who have experienced the event, compared with those who have not. Attitudinal tracking over time enables us to measure if the activity has left a legacy.
JP At Jack Morton we measure return on engagement, in addition to return on investment. This measures the quality of people reached, the engagement and the impact on their thoughts and actions. Our proprietary measurement tool, nGauge, assesses these areas of measurement.
CD The most important step is to plan the evaluation from the minute you begin interrogating the brief. By planning and establishing the key objectives you can build your activity and deliver against these. We would recommend looking at all of the consumer touch points of the activity. This could include brand-perception, direct sales, website traffic, redemption rates, media coverage and advocacy scores, to name but a few.
What is the most impressive experiential campaign you have seen that was not your own?
LT Disney World is the ultimate experiential case study. Not only does it communicate the essence of a brand (and its characters) through a personalised experience, but it is an experience that consumers are prepared to pay huge sums of money to enjoy.
JP Orange RockCorps is a fantastic concept that genuinely encourages people to give something back to the community, and at the same time brings Orange's corporate social responsibility credentials and entertainment attributes to the forefront.
CD Nike is always at the forefront of maintaining edge and relevance through unique experiential marketing activity, but if I had to pick one specific UK campaign from 2008, it would be Becks Fusion.
HR Red Bull delivers a great and arguably unique experience through Flugtag and the Air Race, and has been largely defining the experiential arena for some time.
What are the biggest challenges facing experiential events?
HR Mainly, ensuring you have created a compelling experience that delivers across all of the consumer touchpoints and not simply within the realms of your brand.
JP It is critical that the industry focuses on demonstrating a genuine return on investment for clients in order to grow the business and maintain viable margins. Without this, we risk the commoditisation of the industry, in a climate where procurement is prevalent.
CD There are three core challenges over the next five years: continuing to convince clients of the value experiential can deliver through working effectively with other marketing channels; building a much better understanding through insight and research into the role experiential can play for today's consumer; and finding enough good people to sustain the growth in the industry and raise the bar.
What does the future hold for experiential marketing?
LT The future for experiential looks great as the sector proves time and time again to marketeers what it can deliver, for relatively small amounts of money compared with classic advertising. Traditional sponsorship will be engulfed in this medium, and I expect that PR agencies will increasingly turn to it. With more budget allocated to this area by brands the standard of activity will continue to rise, raising the bar for traditional event promoters.
CD More and more of our global work is around retail, combining experiential with digital and using it at the core of integrated marketing campaigns. Brands are continuing to believe that a shift from frequency of message to depth of message is a more effective way of marketing in today's fragmented marketplace, and experiential is one of the best ways of doing that.
EXPERTS' CHOICE
Our experiential club reveal their favourite venues and suppliers for producing the perfect event.
VENUES
Cameron Day
Hellenic Centre
Indigo2
Koko
O2 Shepherds Bush Empire;
Shoreditch House
Julian Pullan
The Bridge
British Museum
Old Billingsgate
Millbrook Proving Ground;
Museu Nacional d'Art de Cataluna, Barcelona
Hugh Robertson
The Deck;
Flower Cellars;
Hearn St Car Park;
Koko
Old Truman Brewery
Louise Taylor
Hyde Park;
Roof Gardens
Old Truman Brewery
Royal Albert Hall
Trafalgar Square
SUPPLIERS
Cameron Day
Britannia Row;
Electric Fly;
Last Supper;
Mash
MRL
Hugh Robertson
Audile;
Equinox Design;
Event Merchandising
Kingfisher Graphics;
Spacial
Louise Taylor
Ascot Structures;
Creative Technology;
PRG
Star Events Group;
Sweet&Chilli