No Walk In The Park

Agencies catering to brands’ increasing desire for experiential will have to work hard on their creative if they want to generate buzz

Some 75% of marketers recently surveyed in the UK, Europe, the US, China and Australia, by experiential specialist Jack Morton Worldwide, said they will increase spending on experiential marketing in 2008. As more brands demand it, of course, the more it is supplied — agencies are fast jumping on this ‘brandwagon’ and challenging specialists by developing an experiential offer to add to their list of services.

But are they really equipped to do so? By definition, offering experiential as an ‘add-on’ shows true ignorance of its very nature. To tack it on as an after-thought, either to an agency’s offering or to a campaign, is to miss the point.

The simple truth is that experiential delivers best when it works at a brand’s core and is integrated at the planning stage of a campaign. Experiential can be tactical, but must be strategic.

Its power to drive other awareness channels, for instance, needs to be factored in from the beginning as an integral part of a campaign, or risk being lost.

Carlsberg demonstrated how well experiential can kick-start other channels with its ‘money drop’ campaign last year. The socially responsible, guerilla ‘we don’t do litter’ campaign saw £5000 worth of £20 and £10 notes, each bearing a sticker with the campaign message, dropped randomly on to London pedestrians who, not surprisingly, clamoured to get involved.

It spawned a dynamite PR campaign that exploded across the world, setting traditional and non-traditional media alight with talk of it. For £5000, it had ‘probably the best ROI in the world’ — so who says experiential is hard to measure?

This goes to show that, in experiential, budget size is not important — it’s how well you use it that matters.

If the creative and strategy is right, smaller brands can make as big a splash on a budget using experiential methods as event–sponsoring giants such as Virgin, Tennent’s and O2. It’s almost made for helping niche brands grow awareness.

A campaign that we ran last year for Superdrug sun cream used four gorgeous ‘firemen’ to rub said cream on sun–soaked festival–goers at T4’s On The Beach event, T in the Park and the O2 Wireless Festival. The campaign allowed Superdrug to literally touch end users in a way that above–the–line advertising can only dream of.

It delivered added value, fun, and allowed the topless ‘brand ambassadors’ to talk to consumers on a one–to–one basis about the product. For many, those events will always remind them of Superdrug sun cream and half–naked firemen — a powerful ‘feel–good’ brand association.

So, clearly, experiential now consists of a lot more than handing out samples from a pretty stand. When done well, it can engage consumers and enhance brand equity in a way that no other medium can match.

But doing it well is no walk in the park. Creating live campaigns that work in the field presents a logistical minefield and depends on deep knowledge, hard–earned experience and well–trained staff to make them work in practice.

Remember that when you decide to run an experiential campaign you are, ultimately, inviting customers to talk about the brand; the real job is making sure you create a positive buzz.

This is why experiential must surely be the preserve of specialists. It’s worth noting that experiential agencies tend to stick to their specialism; it requires real understanding, focus and the resource to deliver it.

Only those who know it inside and out, and who can make it work effectively in the field as an integral part of a campaign, will truly deliver a brand–enhancing experience.

Lucy Pearce is the experiential director at Wax Live

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