Live Issue: Event 100 Live - Developing the debate

Mike Fletcher reports on the Event 100 forum's key presentations and hears the responses they provoked from delegates.

In last month's Event, we focused on some of the most influential figures in experiential marketing before they participated in our first forum on its future. On 14 November, they and their peers came together at The Hospital private members' club in Covent Garden for an afternoon of thought-provoking debate and to hear three speakers from adjacent marketing disciplines give their take on how experiential is perceived by the wider marketing mix.

Mike Mathieson, chief executive of Cake (which began life focused on the PR side of marketing), Tove Okunniwa, managing partner of MEC Access (formerly MEC Sponsorship) and Anna Watkins, director of branded content firm Hubbub, made presentations to a room of delegates from agencies and brand owners, all armed with IML interactive handsets and ready to text their opinions and questions in response to what they were about to hear. After the three presentations, the questions and comments were organised during a short break. Then, when the delegates had returned to their seats, the texts formed the basis for discussion.

Here we present the highlights of the Event 100 Live in partnership with Major Players, followed by how the debate developed.

MIKE MATHIESON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CAKE

"I view this industry in terms of its seat at the table of an early 20th-century dinner party. The client sits at the head of the table and on each side are his advertising agency and his media agency. Then down the table sits the other marketing services agencies including experiential. After dinner, the client turns to the media and advertising agency and says: 'Shall we go for port and cigars in the other room and leave the girls to chat?'

"My mission has always been to manoeuvre myself up that table. Through the demise of advertising agency control, those dinner seats are all now up for grabs. The old model of the live events industry saw silos around the discipline, each with their defined role to play. With the onset of experiential, disciplines such as field marketing and roadshow marketing can propel themselves into this new world.

"The danger is that the term experiential becomes meaningless. So I've decided to set the rules of what is experiential. First, it has to be creative and not just follow the advertising campaign. It then has to be attractive and create real brand conversation. Third, it should be immersive as consumers are becoming harder to reach, so immersing them in the brand and its values is key. It should also be content-rich and finally be accompanied by both amplification and measurement. Not everyone may go but everyone should know about a good piece of activity.

"When we nail down the justification of experiential marketing, only then will we move up the table."

TOVE OKUNNIWA, MANAGING PARTNER, MEC ACCESS

"Our sponsorship offer is split between consultancy and strategy. Where it overlaps with experiential is in the implementation and leverage.

"There is a need for a deeper engagement with client campaigns and it's the good, innovative ideas that are driving the content. Sponsorship is no longer about properties charging for logo stamping. Now it's all about activation and making the investment work harder by leveraging greater value from that sponsorship. Activation is being taken to a new level as the technology improves and marketers are tapping into the passion of the audience, but the sponsorship arena has the same problems as the experiential sector - we need to crack the measurement and evaluation. We are part of a media agency and yet we can't stack up sponsorship ROI with media ROI. Maybe both experiential and sponsorship could work together on this."

ANNA WATKINS, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HUBBUB

"The future of branded conversations is to create enough noise and at Hubbub we mix live with other forms of branded content. Interruptive marketing is about delivering unwanted messages that often get ignored by media-savvy consumers. Branded content is about drawing the consumer in and giving them an offer that they actively chose to engage with. This may be in the form of an event but it's also digital content, mobile content and brand content. The average consumer is now bombarded by more than 4,000 messages a day. We have a bored, bamboozled consumer who is getting busier and needs to be engaged with more exciting offers. It is an exciting time for us all but the marketing roles are no longer defined, so who will gain the ear of the client?

"My four territories where whoever raises their game will prosper are:

- Insight: Anyone can come up with a plan but not everyone can do the strategic long-term marketing objectives. The integrated planning has been wrestled away from the ad agency and now needs to come from us.

- Ideas: Creativity and innovation will win through. The ideas need to reflect the integrated nature of the landscape.

- Integration: If you only specialise in one area, it needs to have amplification. Only then can you justify the investment and explode the idea across other channels.

- Accountability: We need to collaborate together to find a series of accepted measurement models. There are analysts such as Hall and Partners that have produced a branded content evaluation model and we need to use models such as this to justify brand investment."

HOW DELEGATES REACTED TO THE PRESENTATIONS

- Julian Mack, Sony Ericsson: "Experiential is a horrible word. Most people can't even pronounce it. I challenge the industry to come up with a new piece of terminology."

- Hugh Robertson, RPM: "The term experiential has become a bit of a dumping ground and lacks clarity. I think clients are savvy enough to understand what each of us do without the need for one term."

- Simon Lethbridge, Jack Morton Worldwide: "It is necessary to have a big word to describe what we do, especially when competing against advertising terminology, and experiential is a big word."

- Tim Bourne, Exposure: "The client should be looking at creating networks of agencies that specialise in brand engagement across all forms. As agencies we are converging, so how will we collaborate to all our advantage?"

- Anna Watkins, Hubbub: "Recent work for P&G was won pitching against the media agency, the PR agency and the advertising agency. Briefs are being handed out to a wider remit of agencies and we are competing against each other."

- Ian Irving, Sledge: "How can you make an experience better year on year unless you discover the consumer's thoughts and are able to prove the value of our marketing force?"

- David Hornby, Visit London: "When it comes to measurement, you have to have the feelgood factor and the accountability together."

- Anna Watkins, Hubbub: "If you want to be at the top table you have to evaluate and stop being seen as the fluffy side of marketing."

- Ian Irving, Sledge: "It is criminal that a brand's activation investment is not the same as the initial sponsorship outlay."

- Julian Mack, Sony Ericsson: "If you don't measure, you miss consumer insights and consumer thinking."

- David Boreham, D3: "For agencies looking to offer a fully internal solution, do you think they are turning full circle and becoming what they once rejected, a full-service agency? Collaboration with specialists is the way forward."

IML INTERACTIVE

- Experiential is not a term we should use to universally describe the industry.

Agree: 54%

Disagree: 46%

- Do we need one piece of terminology to describe the sector's offer?

Yes: 45%

No: 55%

- Good experiential marketing needs to have additional amplification.

Agree: 92%

Disagree: 8%

- Experiential agencies are increasingly being welcomed to the client top table to join other marketing services.

Agree: 85%

Disagree: 15%

- Experiential agencies are better placed to create greater branded content.

Agree: 16%

Disagree: 84%

- We don't need to measure ROI if the client can see the impact and believe.

Agree: 31%

Disagree 69%.

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