The root word of the discipline cuts through quite clearly and literally:

Experiential marketing’s true power is in its ability to collapse the consumer adoption cycle. In one experience, trial, education and affinity all occur. What comes next is word of mouth and repeat purchase.

The concept of experiential marketing has been around as long as the discipline of marketing itself. It has gone through many stages, cycles, interpretations and iterations. Experiential marketing now finds itself in its rightful place: as an integral part of the marketing mix.

In order to understand experiential marketing, its purpose, power and prowess, one must first appreciate its symbiotic connection to consumer engagement marketing.

Consumer engagement defines itself. It is target and intention combined. It’s when a brand interfaces and directly touches its constituency. Experiential marketing is how this is achieved.

When collaborating with clients on experiential consumer engagement programs, in addition to discovery regarding the basics — what’s being solved for, target, markets, metrics — we introduce them to the Consumer Engagement Continuum. This is a grounding tool that has different levels and ways to achieve the respective intent.

Experiential marketing is a means to engage the consumer. One would be remiss to mention experiential marketing and leave out the words: consumer journey and immersive. 

Experiential marketing at its best is a skillfully designed program that fully immerses attendees in an experience. Guests should have a feeling of being surrounded, welcomed and embraced by the brand. 

This feeling is a result of architecting and designing every touchpoint around the consumer journey. People often ask what differentiates us as a full service brand marketing and experiential agency. Simple: the lens by which we view all programs.

For MKMCreative, client goals always start at the center. Next, those are mapped to the customer journey. At each touchpoint, we consider what we want attendees to think, feel, do. Every aspect is designed with purpose on behalf of the brand to provide guests with a reason and desire to engage. Then it’s time to wrap the program in striking creative, the connective tissue. The final step is to bring the program to life flawlessly via production.

Immersing the consumer must be at the core, as that is often what distinguishes something from being experiential as opposed to an event, sampling program or guerilla marketing.

Often at a large event or walking down the street, someone hands you a sample of food, a beverage, skincare or what have you. As the person receiving, you take it (or not), smile and listen to the person speaking after you. Perhaps you try it. Maybe you toss it. 

Either way, that is a sampling program and a legitimate way for a brand to show up. However, it’s not experiential marketing. Similar thinking applies to an event. Events are more about gatherings and celebrations and not necessarily an experience where the brand is touting a specific item or desiring a particular outcome — outside of a good time. 

For example, when we launched the ridesharing giant Lyft, an immersive experiential consumer activation was conceptualized and produced via lifestyle events and highly trafficked hub pop-ups, complete with light installation photo booths and driver rallies. The activations occurred in major markets and served as a place to introduce, educate, try, celebrate and court the media. This sampling aspect of the program – distributing collateral and incentives via the Lyft Brigade street team — used to entice and convert prospects — was just one facet of a much larger overarching activation. 

When referring back to the filter, for events, chances are not every goal maps back to the consumer journey. For instance, the creative can be determined by the brand and their preference — not necessarily something that speaks to the consumer in a particular way to drive a specific action, as it does in an experiential marketing campaign. 

In one of our campaigns for JUST, a food company, we activated a 5-city international experiential tour. Baked into the experience was sampling, as that was part of the client’s goals. However, launching and highlighting the brand and a new product, JUST Egg, was at the top of the hierarchy.  Sampling was one component of how to accomplish that goal.

A botany-forward experiential activation that put the brand at the center while immersing the consumer in the company’s value proposition and offering for each city, based on its unique nuances was designed, produced and activated. Guests were educated, tried the product and received an easy way to redeem a special offer to purchase. Additionally, a simple mechanism was baked in to spread the word to their nearest and dearest.

Influencer and media programs were integrated to touch large swaths of people via multiple channels and mediums to serve up the information based on one’s preference of how to receive. Whether in the real world, virtually or digitally, consumers were surrounded by or rather, immersed in the experience. 

Experiential marketing is important because it gives prospects and consumers the opportunity to interface with the brand one-to-one in an intimate manner. This way, they really get to know and experience it. This fosters connection and emotional resonance and one of the most important pieces, it transfers ownership of the brand to the individual experiencing it, as they engage in a highly curated way that really spotlights the product, service or offering. This primes the path for what we call viral lubrication. Word of mouth is still ranked as the top way individuals give and receive information and is vital to mass consumption. Generating large-scale awareness leads to accelerated adoption.

When the experiential activation is rich, robust and designed in a way that speaks to the target market, people organically spread the word firsthand. That is one of the greatest benefits of this type of marketing: one person attends, then they tell their peer sphere in the real world and amplify it through social posting. Each person touched by an attendee of the experience then continues to espouse what they heard with the desire to experience it themselves. A community of advocates becomes a natural byproduct of the entire initiative. 

Sparkly Nugget: The sustainable aspect of this type of marketing.

Oftentimes, we see an ad in print, on social or see a commercial and continue to turn the page, the channel or scroll. As experiential marketing is a tactile experience that leaves a lasting imprint, people who come across different networks at different times continue to recount the experience or talk about the product, service and offering → always bringing new people into the fold

Brand Identity & Positioning

> While keeping the brand essence intact, bring the specific product, service or offering off the shelf or screen directly to the people in a way that quickly cuts-through and underscores the brand differentiators and proposition.

Development

> Strategically design the program with a holistic approach
> Once completed, craft a Program Roadmap Architecture, which is an end-to-end strategy complete with each required tactic to complete

Pre-production

> Tackle each item to completion ensuring that it complements and supplements its adjacencies
> Check, double-check and triple-check each detail one more time
> Run through the customer experience before it goes live from every angle; tweak accordingly
> Prepare for the need to change and adapt with frequency as it’s a living, breathing, custom built engagement that is ever-evolving

Experiential Activation

> Show ready
> Walk through the customer experience one more time
> Client walk-through of every touchpoint
> Final touches
> All brand ambassadors in place
> Ensure all amplification tools and protocols are in place: email capture, social posting, special offers, clear way to spread the word to attendees’ networks

Strike

> Dismantle the activation
> Ensure every item is shipped, donated or disposed of properly
> Close out all open items

Post Show

> Compile all findings
> Prepare Retrospective of learnings, opportunities, delivery to goal, metrics
> Host Retrospective with client

Executing an experiential activation can be daunting, even for those who do it for a living.

There are countless pieces and parts that need to come and work together to ensure a seamless experience. The changes are frequent and the need to do something tasteful while ensuring there is the beautiful spectacle aspect to draw people in is complex because all parts hold an equal amount of weight.

Experiential activations are time consuming and require the full attention and time of a dedicated team. MKMCreative takes this on so our clients can focus on their day job.

As a full service experiential brand and marketing agency, we possess decades of experience in the space. As a result, we know its nuances, needs, rhythm and the right partners to pull off with success. We work with clients across industries by design as we’re subject matter experts in the brand space. By working collaboratively and in lockstep with our clients, we become equally knowledgeable with each brand and its offerings, what differentiates it, and tailor campaigns and programs accordingly.

While our clients possess vast knowledge in the space and many can execute a stellar program on their own, in addition to specialized expertise, we serve as additional people power and a resource solely focused on the success of the experiential programs we bring to life. Experiential activations are time consuming and require the full attention and time of a dedicated team. Instantly, we know where to begin and the avenues to travel to address every need and overcome any temporary obstacle or surprise.

Our program design allows room for rounds of review, regular statuses and key approvals from our clients. At any given time, whether agency or client-side, everyone has access to the database whereby every detail lives. All of these measures ensure complete alignment and that the client ultimately remains the owner and key decision maker of their program.

Experiential Marketing is a tactic whereby the brand and like-minded consumers come together for an engagement that emotionally resonates, is sticky and generates awareness to accelerate adoption. There’s an antiquated notion that experiential marketing is a big splashy event. While that remains true, in addition to generating attention for the brand, when executed properly and tied to metrics — a must — it proves to be a powerful brand tool that directly touches people one-to-one. This process generates awareness and accelerates adoption while creating a community of advocates that continue to espouse the brand and bring new like-minded individuals into the fold. While it’s a brand building technique, it’s so much more when integral layers and elements are integrated into the program. People love to learn about and experience new things and share them with their circle. It’s unexpected, exciting, hands-on and worthy of touting the tale to others.

As a multi-faceted branding agency, MKMCreative delivers experiential marketing, creative solutions and branding that emotionally resonates by taking a customized approach to curating, cultivating, developing and augmenting brands. MKMCreative was recently selected as one of the top branding agencies in San Francisco.