In the last 5 years, the world has witnessed the internet exploding with social websites and apps that have revolutionized the way we accessed and shared content with each other. With the explosive popularity of social sites like Facebook, Twitter etc., every mainstream brand wants to get on the bandwagon and lead the change. It is only recently that new job titles like ‘social media manager’ started to make rounds on job portals, a job profile that is primarily targeted by young graduates who are savvy with web 2.0. It was time that everybody thought traditional mediums of brand communication can soon be found only at a graveyard. Then came the statistics, TV is not dead. Traditional mediums such as TV is still powerful and social media is not going to replace it anytime soon. In reference to this new understanding, a term was coined – ‘tradigital’, which combines traditional and digital together as a strategy. This means, displays still offer not only an effective way to display ads but they can engage people too. Only recently, India is witnessing high-quality displays popping up across cities, especially in malls, both outdoors and indoors. Without realizing it, many electronic stores in the city inadvertently been engaging masses whenever there was a TV coverage of an important event or sports. Just think about all those days when there was a big breaking news on TV or a high intensity cricket match between India and Pakistan, it would have been a common site in India to see people flocking outside stores with glass windows, with multiple television sets playing the events. Although, the electronic store isn’t intentionally engaging people, but from this phenomenon, we know that content that generates curiosity, content that is good and content that generates interest can draw people’s attention. When we imagine huge, high quality LED displays showing attractive commercials and engaging ads, New York Times Square intersection is what comes to our mind. The buildings across the intersection are littered with bright and beautiful displays showing latest commercials and interactive videos. Times Square Dunk Tank is one clever interactive campaign that Clear Channel Spectacolor did to showcase how advanced their products and services were. To do this, they utilized a huge display that would let people passing-by see themselves on the screen, to get their attention. Then a male and female protagonist appear on the screen encouraging people to tweet live and vote for either of them. This follows by an interactive game with motion sensor – ‘Dunk Tank’ in which, people have to raise their hands and hit a ball towards a target. This followed by online engagement where people would discuss, share and even upload their photos to get featured on the screen as next protagonists. India may be far from such initiatives but marketers can always be the first to back such bold experiential activities using displays. Similarly, creative agencies can device something unique using high-quality displays that Indians don’t generally find in the public. Although outdoor high-quality displays may seem improbable in India at the moment, some malls have already started to use them for indoor localized advertising. Ambience mall in Gurgaon, Haryana has a running display that shows brand advertisements. The long, lean and stretched display is bright and captures people’s attention. However, this probably isn’t the ideal display to do something experiential. But for high-quality displays in India, this can be a start. The mall also has another display that is relatively bigger than the stretched display. Provided, the display is backed with audio and a compère is able to pull the crowd in, this could become a medium for an engaging campaign by a brand. Like the Dunk Tank experiential game, some of the other ways a brand can engage people could be a motion sensing games like what we used to have in India when some of the first webcams arrived here. Brands like Compaq introduced add on software with their Presario desktop computers, which turned the web camera that came with it, into a motion sensing device that would let users hit a ball on the desktop screen with their head. Other interesting engaging activities can include asking participants to take part in popular games like ‘Just Dance’ that involves actual dancing by people on motion sensing floor pads, while the video gets projected onto a huge screen for people to see and cheer them. They could also have live quiz competitions that can involve people tweeting answers live to questions that gets projected on a huge display, giving out instant results that they can share with their friends and so on. When EE reached out to an outdoor and indoor panel supplier, Ashok Kayada of S K Impex, he said: “There is a healthy demand for large display panels by brands, especially indoor panels for various activities. The business is good and we expect it to grow.“ The ideas are limitless when it comes to displays. Visual display is already an effective engagement tool that humans are accustomed to. All that a marketer needs to do is device a way to make engagement experiential, using modern tools that people already carry, and with the right content they can get people brand activated.
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In this race of events, shows and activities, it has become necessary for agencies to spark their events with something new every time to hold the attention of their attendees. An event can successfully manage to get huge footfall but what after that? What matters is not only the number of people attending the event but how many of them takes something from there. Thus comes the idea of investing in attendee engagement and customer encouragement. There are a lot of factors that collaborate in executing an ace event. Great planning and execution are the two key factors as we all know but going in the depth of it, there’s a lot more to it. At EE we throw light on some of the basic yet important aspects that deal with attendee engagement. Kile Ozier a Disney Imagineer and Itinerant Creative Guy rightly said “Don’t hand everything at once, keep giving more.” The art of storytelling plays a very essential role in the execution of an event. It should be molded in a way that allows slow sharing, generating curiosity and thus with every next move, enhancing the depth of experience. It is very important for brands to not serve everything in one platter. From the first string of the activity, the attendee should wait in curiosity to build a chain. All events that manage to associate their initiative with a story or a cause, are good to go and gather huge footfall. It is a great way to grab consumer attention and build better recall. Also brands with the help of event agencies should go deep in their chosen themes of the event and embrace research as a critical aspect of storytelling. Now has come the time to integrate traditional forms of media with new ways of reaching out to customers. Social media adds immense value to an experiential event and helps in generating viral content for the brand. With the help of social media, event planners tend to engage in lasting discussions with their attendees. Social media trending is a vital tool for amplifying brand presence and increasing sales. Either tweeting about the event or broadcasting messages, social media platform has always been a great friend to marketers. Elucidating on the importance of social media, industry experts believe that it’s a great way to reach out to maximum in minimum time span. What cannot be spread through physical presence should take no time to expand through digital space, and social platforms thus become the right marketing tool. From the consumer’s perspective, they are evaluating every investment they make through safe and sound decisions. Therefore brands should create opportunities to communicate directly with customers. Hosting personalized workshops and demonstrations, brands can engage attendees at a much deeper level. Providing your guests and potential buyers with personalized sessions, can prove to be a great marketing tool. There are several events hosted every now and then. What can probably differ one from another is the quality of communication it develops. All customers expect to be engaged and understood at an event. Elucidating on attendee engagement through conversations, Nilanjan Mukherjee, Head Marketing (Personal Care) ITC, believes “Create conversations with them wherever you find them; find out what they like, what they want, what they feel, etc. An interaction with attendees helps in gathering useful insights along with building brand connect. The art of storytelling is very important in an event as we all know and that, if spiked with technology, has the ability to amplify it to the next level. ‘Digitizing experiences’ have become an agenda behind events for agencies. Technology integration in an experiential activity, is a great way to beautify and amplify an event. Brands have realized the need for digital innovation in their experiential campaigns but it still remains in its nascent stage. Talking about events, Managing Director of T.I.C, Gaurav Dhall added: “Every event, be it corporate or social, demands unique way of presentation, thus posing a creative challenge in front of event companies to bring never heard before experience in the event. T.I.C has always known for bringing innovative concepts which becomes a trend, not just following the tried and tested way of storytelling in an event. The usage of surprise elements in the event which can go viral on the internet is definitely a trend. As much as you are talked on social media, better chances to get noticed and success of event is guaranteed. The idea that is not stand alone but involves audience in an engaging way, surely helps the attendees to be a part of the event rather than only be spectators. Social media act as one of the most critical element which no event planner would like to surpass. Use of content marketing is also very popular these days which attracts attendees.” There is a lot to explore in this domain, amplifying our events through technological integration. Presence of digital wide screens and iPads, selfie booths and much more helps in enhancing connection and communication with the attendees. The integration of digital into experiential has thus become the need of the hour and should be paid heed to.
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[caption id="attachment_2103" align="alignnone" width="300"] A beautiful woman holding shopping bags in the mall[/caption] Experiential marketing that also goes by the name, engagement marketing is a form of marketing that lets potential consumers experience a brand personally. The engagement takes place through one of many human senses like emotions, smell, etc. Although most experiential activities take place outdoors at malls, stores and public places, many brands have taken it online with the rise of social media users across the globe. As the internet adoption by users globally grows at a lightening speed, especially in developing countries like India where it is expected to reach a whopping 500 million by 2018, as per some forecasts. More and more retailers and brands have taken the online route to sell their products, by introducing apps and websites. They primarily target smartphone users who are increasingly becoming internet savvy, as many of them do their shopping from their phones – call it a natural evolution. In fact, even Google has taken note of the fact that by year end, 50% of internet users will access it from their mobile devices. As our lives get increasingly busier in the the cost-cutting era, when it comes to shopping, we tend to channel our limited time shopping online. The convenience it offers is incomparable with the ability to place an order with few button presses, 24/7. We do our own research online or we tend to ask our friends for recommendations, rather than depending on advertisements entirely. We also go to review sites. But, there is a shift where consumers increasingly want to know what the product actually feels like when used, how it fares and what are its strengths and weaknesses. Even retailers benefit from putting their products online, they get to reach out to wider audience base and tap into the benefits of email marketing through discounts and sales. Does that mean the retail stores will soon be dead? Absolutely not, as long as we remain social animals, we would always want to interact, feel and experience products we use through experiential engagements. It is just that retail stores need to evolve with time and offer products through experiential channel. The craving for experiences such as touch, feel and smell will always influence our decision making. We would want to know the product better, how it relates to us and our needs, the story around the product etc. As online purchasing becomes more and more common, the retail stores need to get more creative in order to make customer interaction and purchasing, more experiential – than simply doing transactions. The stores need to make their space more social where potential buyers can come and experience the brand come to life. To cite an example, some of the Apple stores do not have a fixed cash counters, instead sales representatives roam around helping out people and when they buy, they can do so with an interactive bar or self checkout, making them feel more empowered that they hold the power from experiencing the product till buying it, just the way a buyer feels while doing online purchase. This is just one creative way to make a store interactive and engaging. The takeaway that experiential marketing brings is the surety that a consumer knows the value that the brand or a product will add, which brands are increasingly realizing. One such example to cite in India would be the Ford EcoSport Urban Discoveries campaign, where a brand directly got involved to make one of its products launch experiential. The people who took part in the campaign shared their likes, dislikes and everything else about the car while they actually traveled in it and experienced it. The users not only got a chance to participate in the campaign but to see, read and hear what common people like them thought of the product. This created a lot of excitement and buzz around the launch period. Even though product information such as reviews, specs etc. could have been made available online, getting first hand experience and opinions of those involved in the campaign adds value and personal connect with the product and the brand. As the phrase goes ‘survival of the fittest’, brands may not need to flex their muscular strength to keep up with the evolution in marketing, but their creative prowess.
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“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” – Steve Jobs. Famous quotes like this one leave a lasting impression on our mind. The reason why such contents strike us hard is because we somewhere, somehow relate to what the content conveys and expresses. An experiential campaign is no different, it aims to create an experience and connect with its target consumers who get some takeaway from it. If the campaign achieves its intended goal to create a brand or product experience with consumers, which they can relate to or that which evokes positive emotions. It is very likely that the brand recall will be more often and consumers will go through positive emotions associating with the brand or its product. If we simply study our lives, we constantly go through events that primarily dominate how we think, feel, do, interact with etc. These events consists of moments, memories and experiences. Most of our engagements happen over the TV with films, serials and textual contents like newspapers, books etc. And then there are some contents from one of these forms, which will stand out and we tend to remember them longer. These longstanding contents leave a mark on us and are very powerful. These days, if we talk about content, the first thing that comes to any marketer’s mind is social media. And, the most outrageously overused expression in the social media domain with respect to content is – ‘Content is King’. A king may be really worthy of praise and valour, but that may only as good as a regional folklore if the word about him doesn’t even get beyond his kingdom. Similarly, experiential marketing may create positive connect with selective audiences at a mall or an event, but the number of people getting impacted directly, first hand with the engagement is not even a fraction compared to the population of a city. It is the social media that propagates and propound such experiential engagements to millions of users who are sitting online and consuming digital data every minute. An experiential activity may be limited geographically, demographically but through social media, it can be brought to huge number of people at once, which helps in advertising and promoting the effort, which in turn can lead many to the brand that is doing the marketing activity. Social media may not alone bring the entire gamut of experiential element to a brand’s campaign but it certainly acts as an amplifier as well as a supporting experiential add on. Although there have been online engagement activities that have been conducted entirely using social media, but it is the content that always makes it interesting, creating an instant connect with the users. So, can good content alone fill for a mediocre on-ground experiential activity? No, it will not. A great experiential activity that evokes positive emotions will encourage people to happily contribute online on its own. Such initiatives will create enough buzz that they would want to generate great content for an upcoming event as well as after the event. Either ways, content is created that cuts through the complex web of information out there online and when personally shared by users with their friends, they tend to get more notices. So all in all, it is important for brands to not just run and complete a great campaign offline, but create enough excitement around it online using good content, which has the power to cause a chain reaction where consumers go on creating content for the brand on their own while engaging and sharing about the campaign, which they just experienced or are anticipating for. The experiential marketing initiatives and great content will always go hand in hand.
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Experiential marketing is the new standard of customer engagement for brands globally. Giants like Coca Cola, Pepsico, Nike have led the experiential space in terms of creativity and the ability to connect with consumers. They have put great emphasis on reaching out to their target consumers by providing experiences and engagement than the usual methods of simply printing traditional print ads, TVCs and OOH displays. In the digital world, social media has taken the precedence where the world is interconnected like never before. Information about an experience with a product or brand can spread faster than the fastest locomotive on earth. So, it has become really vital for brands to connect with consumers and shape their views on how they see the brand. In the earlier days, word of mouth was a way to get more customers buying, but that was slow and took time. Today, internet media can stir a conversation in a matter of minutes globally. This is why brands constantly come up with experiential activities around festivals and different occasions to create a positive feeling among consumers, who then share their experiences further through social media; a modern word of mouth form, by people who experience the activity in the first place. As much social media can act as a catalyst to make successful products, activities or brand message go viral, it can equally destroy a brand and its connect instantly if things go otherwise. So it is vital for brands to know few important things before they tread the experiential space. 1. Knowing the Audience A lot of experiential activities may not have got the desired result because they did an activity based on its popularity, without thinking how that would connect their brand with the audience. For an experiential activity, the marketer must think through what experience that activity will give to consumers and how that would relate to the brand. A little fun and quirky can make a campaign interesting but if gone too far, it may even as obnoxious to consumers. Knowing the sentiments of local population is important. What may be seen as cool in the west may be seen as intrusive in Asia. An activity must be sensitized as per the region it intents to target. Most important, it is the anticipation of what type of customers would interact with, how they would interact with and what connect they will get with the brand or a product must be taken into consideration. 2. Picking the Right Venue As much as it is important to know the audience, it is important to choose the right venue. A luxury car maker’s experiential activity may have zero impact in a festival like ‘Kumbh’ in India that is usually visited by the lower strata of income group. An activity that involves something to do with open theatre performance with high-power speakers may not achieve its intended goals on a rainy day. So, it is important to know what kind of audience will arrive at an event, where would they be spending most of their time at, what would be the likely environment at an event. In short, first, select the type of people you want to target for your brand or product, know the venue that receives most of your target group, know the time when a certain festival or an occasion brings targeted group under one roof and know the environment at the venue on a given date. 3. Give definitive Identity to your Brand With all the melee of choosing the venue, preparing for the campaign, budget etc., one may lose the core objective of the brand and the message that the brand wants to convey. One should always keep the message and engagement goal on top of the priority so customers feel connect instantly with the brand than just have an experience that they forget next morning. 4. Expand your Reach Experiential marketing outdoor is always limited to a small demographic but it is social media and various others forms of media that takes it beyond to many. An outdoor campaign supported by social media is always a good way of getting maximum reach out of a campaign. It also allows a brand to create an ongoing conversation that stretches before an activity to beyond it. Eventually, it is the conversation that creates most impact for any brand. 5. Stretch the Conversation An experiential campaign isn’t just about a phase or a cycle of activity. Like mentioned before, it should be an ongoing engagement and conversation. A brand can integrate aspects like instant consumer feedback so it gives a sense to people that it listens to them individually. It also nurtures accountability. A positive conversation works wonders for word-of-mouth marketing. It provides engagement that people would take it with them to their friends and family. Brands can also personalize their message and make it more human, which again will make consumers want to converse with the brand. Being social animals that we are, brands should make their experiential activity long term than a 7 day sale.
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Experiential marketing is quite evidently picking up pace and becoming the hot favorite style of marketing for brands these days. This marketing form as we all know is about conveying a live brand experience to the consumers that provides them the opportunity to interact with the brand. Brands have now understood the USP of effective marketing and building connect at the same time. They have realized that social and digital marketing in itself is not enough, experiential marketing is what is best accepted. But in such stiff competition and advancement in technology, brands overlook some basic attributes of marketing. So here at EE we pick few don’ts of experiential marketing. Make sure you have clear objectives: It is very necessary for brands to realize that being ambiguous in their approach and strategies will lead them nowhere. One should not invest in an activity just because their competitors are, but for their own establishment. A brand should have a SMART approach, meaning- specific about the approach, measurable (should be able to measure performance against objective), achievable objectives, realistic plans of action, time-bound goals. It is always fine to have multiple objectives but there should always be one main focus so that the brand does not go astray in its approach. Now why brands should pay heed to this is because there is often a great deal of wasted money and resources that go into experiential activities. Thus, it is important to have established set of objectives and not involve too many entities in one event. Experiential marketing is not a tactic but a methodology: Experiential marketing isn’t a tactic and neither it is a fad. Perhaps it’s the worst of all mistakes to think that experiential marketing is merely a tactic. There is a plan, a pre-plan and a post plan to be executed behind an initiative. Experiential marketing is structuring a feeling catering to the point how potential customers see your business and how you convert that feeling into a reliable, unswerving decision to choose you over others. Thus it should never be a hasty decision but to have a smart approach yielding better ROI. Create activities designed to meet you objectives: All experiential activities that a brand designs and plans should rightly adhere to the audience and satisfy the objectives behind the initiative. Setting objectives is fine, but doing the right things to accomplish these goals is important. If a brand wants to create awareness against women empowerment and hosts a marathon in lieu of that, it won’t solve its purpose and neither would it generate a buzz. Therefore may it be creating awareness about a social cause or celebrating a spirit, the activities should be planned accordingly. One size fits all events hold no good. Hence all events should not be planned in the same manner under the same cloud. Don’t forget to always generate the right audience: As we talk about generating experiences and building relationships, who do we do it with? Well yes the most important part of any event is certainly the audience that it manages to gather. The challenge that prevails further is to get the right audience together. Agencies should focus on delivering as many people as possible to all exhibitors and sponsors. Brands should intend to promote and focus on reasons that would ultimately compel their target audience to attract. The location also plays an important role in choosing the right audience. The activities can be planned and designed in a manner catering to a specific audience at an event. Topics to be discussed at an event should be persuading enough to trigger the emotions and arouse interest in the audience. It is also vital to show to your audience what different and special they can avail at your event and not anywhere else. Also choosing the right audience is interlinked with its previous objective of having clarity about the objectives because only then it is possible to gather the most appropriate audience for the brands initiative. Never overlook the pre and post event details: Social media trending before and after the event is as important as it is during an event. Not only social media but it is essential for brands to create buzz to gain recognition and attract their potential buyers to an extent. Mostly brands overlook on the post event aspect of their marketing initiative. It is important for brands to follow up with their customers quickly and consistently. Generally brands are not prepared as to hoe they will address leads post event. Thus there should be a plan of action to sort and manage queries. Keeping an appropriate track of the acceptance of the event is very significant. Thus pre and post event feedback mechanism should be generated by each brand. No matter it is a negative response or a positive feedback, it should never be ignored because this is what helps a brand to become better every time. These were a few key points that brands overlook while executing activities and planning events. Hence these were gentle reminders for brands and agencies to have a look at.
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Recently at EMF’s maiden event ACE 2014, event managers and agencies convened together with a spirit of eagerness and excitement to debate on the changing phases of events and entertainment industry. A session by Mr. Tarsem Mittal, Head TM Entertainment, Ms. Reema Gupta, Director Red Entertainment and Mr. Rajesh Sharma, Founder Laughing Colors shared their thoughts and views about the challenges they face as talent managers with the artists. Artist management is not anymore the concept and practice that it used to be. It has become a more grand and extravagant show in the present days. Mr. Tarsem Mittal highlighted the issues associated with managing artists considering past, present and future. Earlier most people felt that a celebrity manager is an unnecessary broker between an artist and its organizer, whereas there has been a change seen over time. People have realized and started accepting the talent that our artists have been showcasing these days. Some of the other points that Mr. Mittal mentioned were, the talent managers have become an organized agency these days and thus they have become easily accessible to official agency representatives. He further moved on to explain what an entertainment manager does and offers to its clients and what the clients expect in return of the budgets they invest. “Today event manager is the boss, who decides which artist should be performing in which event and he has the liberty to customize and conceptualize his event according to his requirements so that he can efficiently fulfill the needs of his clients, said Mr. Mittal.” Taking the subject forward, Ms. Reema Gupta elucidated on the need and importance of featuring international artists on our national platform. She clearly said it is no more the same situation of bringing a singer or a Bollywood personality to the table and attaining satisfaction. As event managers, it is needful to accommodate and bring international artists to India considering the increasing talent seen nationally and globally. There was a time when a big vacuum was generated, to be filled with something which was unique, an experience worth remembering and that when certain agencies came into existence and went all across the world to pick talent that suited the Indian industry. This urge brought a lot of artists to India, adding to the economy, showcasing unknown talent, adding value in terms of clients and thus making it more convenient for logistics. Ms. Gupta said “People have become more quality conscious and creative. Imagination plays the key role in events of present times.” She stressed on the fact that how important it has become to fulfill all verticals of the event one is hosting. But what makes it a complete event, is when both Indian and International artists can perform on one stage. “International artists coming to India might reduce in future but what will surely increase is the usage of International concepts in this country.” Speaking specifically about comedians in this industry, Mr. Rajesh Sharma threw light on the challenges faced with comedy artists. He started off by mentioning how comedians in earlier times were considered as fillers in an event, but with the advent of comedy shows on television “these fillers have become pillars, said Mr. Sharma.” They have gradually started stealing the show to a great extent. He also spoke about the demand of the comedians in terms of budgets with the increasing acceptance and love showered by their viewers. Mr. Rajesh Verma summed up the key issues; first being a contract to be signed with the artist before the event, post event report should be capitulated and analysis should be made. Another point made was to form an artist association which addresses the issues that occur, and last but the least talent managers should generate trust in their clients when asking for a quotation.
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MTV, gives selfie enthusiasts a chance to whip out their phones and strike a pose with the ‘MTV The Great Selfie Challenge’. An innovative digital show to kill boring and legitimize the unhealthy obsession with taking selfies, ‘MTV The Great Selfie Challenge’, is a unique show where five selfie enthusiasts will get the opportunity to travel across India completing challenges in the quest for the most epic selfie ever! Selfies go back to the mid 1800’s where Robert Cornelius took the first ever ‘Selfie’ only he didn’t know it was called that. Since being coined in 2002, the word ‘selfie’ and selfies themselves gained popularity in 2010 and by 2013 it was declared the ‘Word of the Year’. As people around the world are going crazy taking selfies in every pose and situation possible, MTV, is all set to pay tribute to the biggest phenomenon of our times with ‘MTV The Great Selfie Challenge’. Explaining the phenomenon further, Ekalavya Bhattacharya, Digital Head at MTV India says, “The selfie was supposed to be like every other fad that came and went; but that hasn’t happened and I personally don’t think it is something which will die any time soon. While several brands have tried to create a quirky campaign around selfies, none of them have been particularly striking. They have almost always exclusively been contests asking users to send in their photos. How boring! What’s different about this show is that – It isn’t just about an epic selfie but also the incredible, crazy and adventurous story that’s behind every great click.” MTV is looking for selfie buffs who are willing to travel thousands of kilometers, go to logic defying lengths, doing some of the craziest stuff imaginable – from cliff diving to going underwater to hanging out with ghosts – all in the bid to get that perfect selfie. All one needs to do in order to be on this show is to complete three selfie challenges that have been laid out on www.mtvindia.com/selfie. The five best entries will be selected to experience the most thrilling and adventurous selfie dares which forever will leave their mark in selfie history!
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