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Networking drinks and canapes were coupled with talks from Alex Smith, planning director at Sense and author of the book, Innocent’s brand activation manager Jamie Sterry and Marina Haydn, The Economist’s senior vice president of circulation and retail marketing, who spoke about how they are using experiential to connect with consumers.
The launch of the book, billed as a guide to modern experiential marketing, has been supported by a week-long event at the gallery, called the School of Real World Ideas.
Nick Adams, managing director at Sense, told Event that the agency had held lots of sessions at the gallery with existing and prospective clients, with the book broken down into bitesize sessions in a workshop format.
"We felt there was a need to put all of this information - the changes in experiential over the past decade - in one place," said Adams. "However we wanted to take our agency hat off, as we wanted it to be quite impartial."
Smith said there is a lot of different opinions about what experiential actually is. "Every agency has a different definition," he adds, with the book attempting to set out Sense’s angle on the debate.
He added that there was a definite trend among advertisers to move away from story telling, and into story making; something which is spilling over into experiential campaigns.
Adams added: "More and more we are designing the direct experience, with the indirect experience (and content) in mind," hinting that new client Innocent’s planned Coconut Water campaign this summer will be along these lines. "It’s about getting the content and amplifying it," he said.
The book has already been well received with plans to potentially rework it as a textbook for events management students at London Metropolitan University.
in November last year, and will begin a (12 February).
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