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Story telling through experiential marketing- Reebok, Harley Davidson, Philips at launch of BW APPLAUSE

Gone are the days when brands used to sell their products through nonsensical, preachy and one directional marketing techniques. Nowadays if a brand is smart, then its target consumers are smarter and do not end up as a prey to its overhyped ATL advertising. Consumers today are not moved by what they see and hear alone, they are moved by a storytelling narrative that they can connect to.

But how are brands weaving their brand communication in a narrative is a question often asked. To answer this, "Story telling through experiential marketing- How to build a narrative that speaks to your TG" was the theme of a panel discussion at the launch of BW APPLAUSE magazine.

The panelists on stage were Kanika Mittal, Marketing Head, Reebok, Pallavi Singh, Marketing Director, Harley Davidson, Amit Tiwari, Country Head Media & Digital, Philips and the session was moderated by Suchetana Ray, National News Editor BW Businessworld.

When asked how are brands trying to weave their narrative around story telling? Kanika Mittal shares her personal experience from Reebok by saying, “Storytelling has become an integral part of marketing today across the world and India is embracing it at a very fast pace. At Reebok, the traditional tools of ATL/BTL cost you around 50-60% of the marketing strategy but what matters is how you position yourself in the minds of consumers. There is a big difference between telling a consumer about the technological attributes of a product and telling them about how that particular product is going to impact their lives.

Earlier in the year we launched a campaign called MSD for India, wherein Mahendra Singh Dhoni asked the people of the country for something and the people of the country had to answer what the captain was asking from them? We answered the question after a month that the captain asks you for one hour from your day that you should invest in some sort of a sporting activity that will positively impact the other 23 hours in a person’s lifestyle.

The campaign was a huge success and we could have taken the campaign the traditional route and positioned in something around fitness but instead we went through a more engaging and innovative way to deliver the same message and this is way brands are marketing themselves today.”

Voicing his opinion Amit Tiwari said, “Storytelling is not just a part of a marketing campaign for brands today instead it has become the heart of all campaigns run by a brand irrespective of them being ATL or BTL. Without storytelling your brand messages can very well end up being noticed and get lost in the already existing advertising clutter.”


Pallavi Singh replies to the same question by highlighting an integral fact about storytelling. She said, “It is not just that storytelling has to be a part of your marketing plan but it has be ensured that the narrative is connected with your brand and is an important part of it. The overall communication that one is trying to send out from a brands point of view should make sense to customers and connect elements of brand, its attribute and the customers.”

But since there is no process in place to determine the ROI on experiential marketing spends is that an issue why investments on experiential by brands are so low? To this Kanika Mittal responds by saying, “Unlike a Digital Campaign spend where you can track the level of engagement and number of impressions yes experiential industry is comparatively new and you actually cannot calculate the ROI on it. The reason behind why one cannot calculate the experiential marketing ROI is because one starts with experiential marketing at a very small scale. You cannot expect to engage masses through experiential marketing, it is a movement that starts at small and takes a little time to generate ROI.

What marketers need to do today is maintain a balance between traditional marketing activities that help in increasing the awareness about your brand, increasing footfall in your stores etc. and some experiential activities that help elevate the cool quotient of your brand. For me the balance will be keeping the experiential initiatives at around 30% of the overall marketing plan 60% through traditional message delivery.”

Pallavi Singh answers the same question by saying, “Through experiential marketing, what we have seen is that passion drives people. Of course there have to be metrics to everything however in today’s day and age a customer is much smarter than brands themselves and through experiential marketing we create events that instill such passion in people. For experiential marketing to work it is important to know what a consumer wants and then engaging them accordingly to give them that experience.”

Sharing his brands philosophy on experiential Amit Tiwari says, “For us experiential industry starts from a need. A particular category may require an event where as a particular product category under the same brand name might not need any such marketing. Our marketing strategies vary from the product that we have at hand and the kind of connect we want to create with it.”

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Shantanu Jain

BW Reporters Shantanu writes for Everything Experiential

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