Experiential marketing allows brands to tell larger stories in an engaging way: Mandar Natekar, Chief Business Officer, KidZania

With the 3 Leaders of experiential who believe, invest and practice in the power of experiential showed up for a session at BW Applause Experiential Marketing Summit and Awards namely, Mandar Natekar, Chief Business Officer, KidZania, Ramita Chaudhuri, Chief Marketer, Mahou India and Sameer Tobaccowala, CEO, Shobiz Events. The moderator for the session was Ruhail Amin, Executive Editor, BW Applause & everythingexperiential.com. The panel discussed 'The Rise of Experiential in the Marketing Mix'.

When we talk of experiential, do people treat it at par in the marketing mix. Can it only be seen working at par along with the other marketing mix elements? To this, picking one of the most important point Mandar Natekar, Chief Business Officer, KidZania said, “We need to look at ROE and not ROI. The Return on Engagement should be considered as a metric of experiential. Another thing which he adds onto was if a brand can be at the consumer’s happy place using any leverage of experiential then it becomes an incredible opportunity for the brand.”

While the industry is more into experiential marketing, Ramita Chaudhuri, Chief Marketer, Mahou India talked about strategy planning, she said, “More of strategy planning fits into the marketing mix from both ends that are the client as well as the event or experiential agency.

Ramita Chaudhuri, Chief Marketer, Mahou India also stated her opinion on experiential as a category agnostic where she said, “If a company is not able to bring experiential on the online, offline, events, activation, bloggers, influencer or anywhere else or even at the television commercial. If the brands are not able to cope with all verticals of marketing then her ROI, ROE will not be justified.”

Sameer Tobaccowala, CEO, Shobiz Events, “the brands are trying to change the thought process of the large audience and finally making sales in the experiential space. The brands are having different outcome at different cycle of their product when they conduct n event or experience. Also, if the brands are able to change the thought process then the engagement rate goes high and in accordance to the plan.”