Never mind the marketing, feel the experience

In fact, as brands struggle to engage audiences with traditional messages, advertisers are increasingly looking to live events and interaction to make an impact. This strategy has been dubbed experiential marketing.

The idea is less about a brand trying to capture consumers' attention with a sales message and more about encouraging people to participate in an experience or event that is memorable and emotional — creating a deeper, two-way connection between the consumer and the brand.

The hope is that the consumer will then become an advocate, telling friends about their positive experience.

Summer is a peak time for experiential marketing, when the weather is better. It could involve anything from ethical drinks company Innocent staging its own food and music festival in Regent's Park to a luxury car-maker putting its latest model on display in a shopping centre and having a selection of vehicles ready outside for people to test-drive on a whim.

"One of the reasons that experiential marketing is becoming more and more important is that what people are craving is genuine experiences, rather than just communications," says Jim Prior, chief executive of WPP branding agency The Partners.

"It's an opportunity to engage with something, rather than traditional communications which are just one way."

Shaz Smilansky, co-founder of specialist agency Blazinstar Experiential, agrees. It is "not just about plastering your logo" all over an event, which would amount to little more than just sponsorship. Instead, a brand should be "creating its own content that is an expression of the brand's individuality". She says that's important because today's consumers are so savvy. "If it's not 100% authentic and meaningful, the audience will see through it."

What's more, for a brand, creating its own unique event may be more valuable than being seen to piggy-back as a sponsor on something that already existed — say, for example, a long-running music festival.

Staging the event is just the start, adds Smilansky. The key is to ensure it is part of an integrated campaign, "amplifying" the live event through advertising, social networking websites, and public relations — both before and after — so that more people are aware of it.

Smilansky cites T-Mobile's "flash-mob" campaign, which Blazinstar worked on, as a good example of how to use experiential marketing by "placing it at the core of the creative" and amplifying it.

That idea began with encouraging members of the public (and some actors) to converge on
Liverpool Street station to dance together on the concourse spontaneously. The "flash-mob" event prompted news coverage, viral footage on social media websites, and it was all filmed for a TV ad, with the strapline "Life's For Sharing", that aired within days.

For Tove Okunniwa, managing partner at media-buying agency MEC Access, experiential marketing can have a very practical purpose. Her agency worked with supermarket chain Morrisons on its "Let's Grow" campaign, which involved giving away seeds so shoppers could grow their own fruit and vegetables, organising workshops and mentoring, creating a website and other resources.

Okunniwa says Morrisons customers responded not only because "growing your own" tapped into the public mood but also because "people want more dialogue, more experience than just being talked at" by a brand.

Matthew Bending, chief executive of SpaceandPeople, a listed company that rents space to advertisers in shopping centres and airports, says experiential marketing also demonstrates a clear return on investment.

In the case of that car-maker mentioned earlier, Bending says the German firm had one car on display in an upmarket shopping centre and three test-drive cars waiting outside. Over the course of three days, the car-maker sold 7 luxury vehicles and had options on another 12 — not bad for a marketing spend of £10,000. Sometimes experiential campaigns can run in dozens of sites at once.

"It's about activating the desire and need [in consumers]", says Bending. "It's not just saying: Here is the product.' It is about saying: Sit in it, try it.'" Like Smilanksy of Blazinstar, he says it is essential for the strategy to be part of a wider integrated campaign, using other channels such as TV and press.

In a sign of how experiential marketing is becoming more important, Bending says a decade ago 70% of bookings with SpaceandPeople were made within 30 days. Now two-thirds are made more than 180 days in advance.

Some observers point out that live events and experiences can be expensive to organise and are not guaranteed to generate big audiences. But Smilansky argues that it is worthwhile, particularly for "higher-margin" brands such as mobile smartphones, cars and electronic goods, which can benefit because they are a "more high consideration purchase".

Research in the US suggests a person who participates in an event or activity will tell on average 17 friends, helping to encourage word-of-mouth recommendations, which are more potent than any other driver of sales.

No wonder advertisers want us to join in the experience.