Experiential Marketing Puts Brands Into Customers' Hands

By Author: Jeff Hewson
Total Articles: 13
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Experiential marketing seeks to directly connect consumers with a product or service, such that the consumers come away with first-hand knowledge of the brand. This contact then creates a visceral reaction and leads to an ongoing relationship.

Experiential marketing is a strategy that combines the use of both new technologies and tried and true, hands-on methods. In very simple terms, experiential marketing has the goal of getting potential consumers to interact directly with a brand or service.

Why is direct interaction important? Because involvement with the brand is an important path to building a lasting relationship. Locally, Toronto experiential marketing is an important foot in the door (to use an old-school marketing cliché). Whether or not the experience leads to a sale on the spot – a distinct possibility – it can help break down a consumer’s theoretical objections or hesitations. Rather than passively weighing an abstract set of benefits, as they would with a traditional advertising-based marketing approach, consumers that have gone through an experiential marketing event will have concrete ...
... knowledge. Intellectual and emotional connections, it is hoped, will be formed from this immediate contact.

To use an extremely simple example – which is more persuasive: the most gorgeous picture of a dish of ice cream being enjoyed by someone else (a model or actor), or a direct taste of that ice cream by a consumer in a store. Of course, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive; but clearly the latter approach has the better chance of ensnaring the consumer immediately. They themselves now have had the experience of enjoying the ice cream – which just happens to be for sale a few metres away.

More complex experiential marketing events are possible. Event marketing typically stresses larger scale interactions, however (while still engaging consumers directly, of course). An alcohol brand might sponsor a beach party, for example, with live music and a "party" atmosphere featuring samples of the brand. Participants might enjoy the taste of the product in and of itself, but they may also associate that product with the (hopefully) great time they had.

As for the use of new technologies, the Internet – particularly social network sites – allow a more interactive relationship to develop between products and consumers. Feedback mechanisms can be constructed that are almost immediate. Push technologies can keep a branding message top of mind, while companies can accept genuine input from customers, allowing them to influence some aspects of the product or brand.

The goals are the same as they have always been: connect customers with products or services, construct relationships, and work to maintain and extend those relationships for as long as possible. Experiential marketing can be an effective technique in service of these goals. Clients in Toronto should look for a Toronto event marketing agency that can help them explore this approach.

The author of this article is associated with Kognitive Marketing that specializes in Toronto experiential marketing and Toronto event marketing agency. For more information visit the site.