Events combine brand storytelling, commerce and community all in one. Whether you are a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) company, connecting with your customers beyond your store and/or website is an invaluable opportunity for creating one-to-one engagement and bringing your brand to life. Events such as trade shows, pop-up retail stores and brand activations create a unique opportunity to meet your customers on their terms: where they shop, learn or are entertained.
Proven Strategies for Breakthrough Brand Activations and Events
Start with clarity. Define your objectives, identify your audience and determine how to measure success. Most importantly, understand why you are in a certain space to begin with.
Here are a few reasons you may want to participate in a certain event:
- To create a big brand moment: Launch a new product or reposition your brand to make a significant impact. For instance, Sleep Number exhibited at CES (The Consumer Electronics Show) from 2013 through 2023 to position the brand as the leader in Sleep Technology and Wellness, resulting in an average of more than two billion media impressions per event and leading to the creation of an entirely new category: Sleep Tech.
- To engage with your customers and new buyers: Besides sales and dealmaking, you can use events and activations to gather invaluable real-time feedback and insights. For example, at last April’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, a variety of brands from Absolut to Amex, HBO and Hyatt connected with consumers through immersive experiences. Even Sally Hansen, Pinterest, Remy Martin, and Lumify Eye vied for festivalgoers’ attention by creating immersive branded moments within the much larger cultural gathering.
- To enter new markets: Make a competitive statement and showcase new products. Online retailer Shein’s latest pop-up in Canada, a retro-inspired four-day event, drew more than 10,000 visitors.
The Formula for Success
- Create a “WOW” Factor: Stand out with bold and scalable designs, regardless of your space size. Use every inch of height to showcase your brand and create a sense of place with structures, which can be made from anything from string to fabric to full exhibit construction, that reflect your brand’s identity.. Use materials that reflect the brand and add a bold element. Adidas, for instance, has mastered the “wow” factor with iconic pop-ups like the giant shoebox pop-up shop and its most recent Gucci x Adidas Collab pop-up experience in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall.
- Leverage the Full Human-Physical-Digital Experience: The physical and digital experience are often the focus while the value of the human experience is undervalued. Staff the experience with knowledgeable brand ambassadors and use the opportunity as a perk incentive for store teams to be selected to represent the brand at events that they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to attend. This can also double as an internal social engagement strategy. (Learn more about the human-physical-digital experience here.)
- A 1-3-3 Communication Strategy: Simplify your message to make a lasting impact.
- 1 Big Idea: Focus on one key message you want attendees to remember.
- 3 Supporting Messages: Amplify the big idea with three core messages, since humans can only remember three ideas at a time.
- 3 Benefits per Message: Explain each supporting message with benefits to the consumer. Avoid cluttering your communication.
- Personalized and Shared Experiences: Combine interactive experiences and gamification to create both personalized and shared engagement. For example, AR/VR tech can be exciting for users and active participants but may be boring for onlookers. Develop layered experiences that are entertaining and encourage attendees to try the personal experience. Nothing builds a line like a line.
- Extend the Event Beyond the Event: Engage customers both onsite and offsite. Create content opportunities and involve co-creators. Collaborations and partnerships can amplify engagement and credibility through shared brand equity. An example is the Sleep Number activation at the Super Bowl, which included an immersive experience and onsite partner content studio, driving more than 1.5 billion media impressions per event and providing content for an extended content calendar. Create shareable moments that are more than a selfie spot and encourage organic posting because it is just too cool not to share.
- Modular Programs: Create a kit of physical parts that can be tiered to match assets and investment to the size of the event. Develop immersive experiences that can be leveraged across physical and digital consumer touch points, eliminating the one-and-done expense of technology development and environments.
- Select the Right Support Partners: The key to successful events are partners that can truly work together on both strategy and experiences that meet a target budget and objectives. Partners should bring both creative, disruptive ideas as well as cost-effective solutions to the table.
Use Experiential Marketing to Test and Learn Prior to Scaling to Retail
Leverage event traffic to test new ideas, measure sentiment and refine messaging prior to large-scale investment and rollout. For example, Sleep Number used events to test and refine new experiential technology before scaling to retail. At CES, more than 1,500 attendees a day engaged in new immersive product experiences compared to the limited daily traffic in a retail location, which allowed for more rapid learning and real-time consumer feedback and engagement.
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Create an Event to Remember
In summary, mastering the art of experiential marketing requires a clear strategy, innovative design and a focus on engaging experiences. By defining objectives, creating impactful brand moments and leveraging physical, digital and human interactions, brands can significantly enhance their connection with customers.
The proven strategies outlined here, from the “WOW” factor to the 1-3-3 communication strategy, offer a roadmap for success. Testing and learning through events before scaling to retail ensures refined approaches and maximized impact. By implementing these tactics, brands can create memorable experiences that drive brand love/affinity, generate leads and ultimately boost their bottom line.
The Event Formula is based on Angela Gearhart’s extensive retail experience in transforming premium brands. As former VP Brand Experience at Sleep Number, her team was recognized with over 30 design, innovation, and technology awards, designing an event sales channel leveraged at over 35,000 events, driving more than 1 million leads and $300M over a 10-year span. Gearhart is the Co-founder of MediaMaxx, specializing in accelerating brand growth through ecommerce partnership marketing and retail strategies. She also serves as Executive Practice Director at AAG Consulting Group, leveraging her insights into buyer dynamics and retail technology to deliver effective positioning strategies for B2B retail tech firms. To learn more about how this Formula can work for your company, reach out to her at [email protected].
