Welcome back to another edition of Case Study Chat with MOGXP founder Sheila Rondeau, where we’ll be talking about real-life examples of experiential marketing in action. Even though we are using caution when creating marketing experiences in the community at this time, we can still share success stories to inspire you for the future. This week, we’ll discover how MOGXP used College Ambassador programs to provide experiential marketing for several brands.

Q: Who were the clients?

Sheila: The clients I’m talking about today are Optimum Nutrition and BSN (you can catch up on our previous case study chats about these clients). They’re both sports nutrition brands owned by the same company, so they make similar products. But they have different target audiences.

Despite some differences in their customer base, both companies were interested in creating college ambassador programs. These programs use relationships with college students to help create brand awareness around their campuses. They achieve this by doing product sampling, creating social media posts, seeding, and representing the brand at local events.

Q: What challenges were you trying to solve for these clients?

Sheila: Both brands wanted to start college ambassador programs as a way of getting their products in front of a young audience. But traditional ambassador programs come with huge expenses. For the return on investment both ON and BSN were looking at, it wasn’t worth those high costs.

So instead, I introduced them to my model for these ambassador programs. I work with many college students as ambassadors. And some of the best go on to be my interns throughout their college courses. Instead of having layers of account managers responsible for each ambassador program, I train my interns to manage the day-to-day work and handle the big picture. And I’m hands-on with the ambassadors as needed too. There’s no expensive hierarchy involved – just a strong relationship with the ambassadors and the interns.

Trust is also central to managing my relationships with clients who have an ambassador program. By having honest conversations early and often about budget, we keep costs where they should be with no surprise bills. We have a true partnership – we sit down at the table together to decide on realistic goals and a budget that works for each brand. Our partnership didn’t develop immediately – I had earned their trust over the course of creating other experiential marketing strategies for both brands over the years.

Q: What challenges were you trying to solve for these clients?

Sheila: Both brands wanted to start college ambassador programs as a way of getting their products in front of a young audience. But traditional ambassador programs come with huge expenses. For the return on investment both ON and BSN were looking at, it wasn’t worth those high costs.

So instead, I introduced them to my model for these ambassador programs. I work with many college students as ambassadors. And some of the best go on to be my interns throughout their college courses. Instead of having layers of account managers responsible for each ambassador program, I train my interns to manage the day-to-day work and handle the big picture. And I’m hands-on with the ambassadors as needed too. There’s no expensive hierarchy involved – just a strong relationship with the ambassadors and the interns.

Trust is also central to managing my relationships with clients who have an ambassador program. By having honest conversations early and often about budget, we keep costs where they should be with no surprise bills. We have a true partnership – we sit down at the table together to decide on realistic goals and a budget that works for each brand. Our partnership didn’t develop immediately – I had earned their trust over the course of creating other experiential marketing strategies for both brands over the years.

Q: What were the key takeaways from building these programs for the clients?

Sheila: Working with ON and BSN was a great proof-of-concept for how to build college ambassador programs for smaller companies without an unlimited budget. What we do at MOGXP is look at experiential marketing differently – using the deep expertise we’ve developed over two decades in business to get real results for our clients of all company sizes.

Experiential marketing doesn’t have to be so expensive or logistically difficult that only big companies can take advantage of it. We create things like our college ambassador programs to work for every client.

And we do that by:

• setting thoughtful and strategic goals
• thinking creatively about customer base and execution
• having frequent and honest conversations about budgets and costs.

We’re a trusted partner for brands and agencies alike.

We Can Help

The power of experiential marketing is behind everything we do. It means getting your product in the hands of people who will try it, love it, and buy it. And we do what fits your budget and gets you results without wasting your marketing dollars.

Our clients know that we base all decisions on the authority we’ve earned from years in the experiential marketing business. That means we’re your partner – you can trust us to be open, honest, and to know exactly how to make your marketing come to life for your target audience.

Want to learn more? Contact our expert team at MOGXP here. We’ll work together to identify the best opportunities to make your experiential marketing campaign a success.