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What Makes Entrepreneurs Tick?
Experiential marketing comes of age
We’ve been doing some business development work for a brilliant new business called Come Round (www.comeround.com @comeround ), who by any measure are at the cutting edge of this thing called ‘experiential marketing’. They specialise in organising simultaneous house parties themed around major music, movie, TV, game and book releases - and demand seems to be growing for this innovative kind of ‘live’ marketing.
So why is experiential marketing becoming a core part of the marketing mix? Well, it seems a few
factors have combined to make it valuable for more than just short term tactical promotions to support a campaign.
Consumers (yes that’s people like you and me!) seem to respond well on an emotional level to a well thought out live experience. My time in the music business taught me a lot about the power of a live performance, where the connections can be universal and, more to the point, long lasting. In a homogonous world where we all spend too much time online or at the computer, then a live experience often provides a way of reconnecting with the real world.
But it’s technologies such as the internet and social media that are now helping to give longer life to these events – giving marketing value before, during and after – and promoting word of mouth buzz over a longer period.
Though in some ways the customer insights which come from all this technology really provide the hidden benefits. The opportunity to draw in real time feedback from customers in a cost effective way can provide invaluable data to help your decision making. And the further development of mobile technology is only going to make this easier and cheaper to do – and across a wide range of consumer categories. Perhaps it really is time to take a more strategic view of the live experience!
Richard Grafton