On the Road Again & More Wildly Successful Experiential Marketing
In an earlier post, we explored the benefits of three effective experiential marketing strategies: product sampling, product showcases and event sponsorship/brand activation. Experiential marketing, aka engagement marketing, actively engages consumers with your brand instead of traditional “one-way” marketing communication strategies. We’ve already noted that experiential marketing increases brand awareness, attracts new customers and solidifies brand loyalty with existing customers. One of experiential marketing’s best components is its versatility — you can select the events and activities that best fit your organization’s budget, objectives and long-term goals. So, let’s explore some more experiential marketing strategies.
Mobile Marketing / Vehicles and Tours
Mobile marketing means taking your message on the road to your target audience. Using branded vehicles and/or trailers and trained brand ambassadors, you can engage with your target audience at street fairs, music festivals, concerts, sporting events, shopping centers and other public spaces. Once there, you can set up tents, stages, hospitality lounges, interactive games, videos, lighting, performers or celebrities. Mobile marketing works for building brand awareness, promoting a new product or service or educating consumers on how your product or service can benefit them.
One of the oldest mobile marketing vehicle tours around is the famous Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, the 27’ bright orange and yellow hot dog-shaped vehicles that regularly tour the country. The Oscar Meyer brand has existed for decades, so the most recent tours aim to educate consumers about recent changes it’s made to make its traditional products healthier.
Another wildly popular example of a vehicle tour done right was the “Don’t Even Trip Road Trip,” aka “Rickmobile.” Cartoon Network’s ad agency created it to look like one of the main characters from its animated Adult Swim series “Rick & Morty” and sent it out on tour to major cities. Fans followed its whereabouts on social media, and whenever it stopped, people flocked to it for photo opps — photos that they shared with others on social media. The tour also included a mobile popup retail shop that sold show-related merchandise. (It should come as no surprise the ad agency (XD Agency) behind the campaign won multiple industry awards!)
Key Takeaways for Mobile Marketing / Vehicle Tours: Choose a mobile marketing experience that matches your brand and budget. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fancy, themed vehicle or nationwide tour — you can run a successful campaign using branded vehicles and materials and an engaging activity that interests consumers within your community.
Experiential Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has exploded recently, and for a good reason — it works when done right. Initially, influencer marketing involved a celebrity or subject matter expert endorsing a product or service. Today, many consumers, particularly millennials and Gen Zs, make buying decisions driven by recommendations from people they follow and trust on social media. In fact, most social media influencers are not widely known celebrities. Instead, they are typically “regular” people like them who exude a certain appealing vibe or share interests such as cooking.
When it comes to experiential marketing, you can build a team of influencers to be “boots on the ground” and authentically engage with your target audience in their space. Influencer marketing only works if influencers can connect and earn trust by respecting and “honoring the turf.” Consumers no longer want to be bombarded with one-way marketing messages from unknown companies or pushy people — they want to make personal connections and engage in peer-to-peer recommendations.
Key Takeaways for Influencer Marketing: As with all experiential marketing, your brand needs to be in the right place. For example, if you were launching an antiaging skincare product, it would be a waste of time and money to run a campaign on a college campus where wrinkles aren’t yet a concern. However, if you were marketing performance energy drinks or sports nutrition, a college campus would be an excellent fit when your influencers are also college students who can “speak the language.”
Stay tuned because we’ll explore a few more highly successful experiential marketing strategies, including cause marketing, VIP hospitality and retail popups, in our next post!
Need some help reaching Generation Z on college campuses? Contact us / 7-888-99-MOGXP to learn about our College Influencer Marketing program!