So we all now the ever increasing popularity of twitter and many of us have been embracing it for self promotion, new business and indeed Social Media marketing for some time and, like me you will no doubt have experienced its power and how it can increase awareness of your messages.
For example, prior to my departure from Sledge, Google analytics was showing that the main drivers to the Sledge.co.uk site were the following:
And the hit figures from no’s 2 & 3 were pretty impressive, thus proving how powerful and cost efficient social media can be for business.
So, all this said… I was interested to read today of the forthcoming release of a rather interesting example of how Twitters USP has transcended into the more tangible world of literature. November sees everyone’s favourite publisher Penguin, release Twitterature… the worlds greatest books in 140 characters.
If for no other reason, as with any Penguin classic, it’s worth a purchase just for its achingly cool sleeve designs.
"A tool to aid the digestion of great literature" Says The Guardian
1. Use Twitter to survey your niche audience… You can pose questions about site selection, content, speakers or other details about your event. A great way for immediate feedback prior to setting up event or feedback after the event.
2. Use Twitter for Hub of Info Updates… this will help create buzz and excitement around your event.
3. Create a chat around your event or topics around your event… This again creates buzz and excitement and can help grow the number of people who know about your event. Use the #, set up a time and have preset questions that you can ask. It will allow your attendees to give you feedback but even better is that it will get them to interact.
4. Promote on every signage, website, email etc… what the Twitter Handle is and the #hashtag.
At the event
1. Have the attendees tweet about the event… Have screens throughout the event showing a live stream of what the attendees are saying. It will be fun and engaging for attendees.
2. Use it as a way to ask questions to the speakers… This can be done by attendees at the event and ones who could not make the event.
3. Use it as an “info central”… for any updates, changes to the event to keep attendees informed up to the second.
4. Organize a TweetUp mixer around the event… This can be before the event, at the event or after the event. Embrace the tweeple.
Now get out there and use Twitter for your events.
Lets take it a step farther and talk about how to use it to increase exposure, attendance, and engagement at your events… Twitter’s power shines in promoting events. Why, because it is a communication tool and enhances word of mouth. It is an easy way to share before the event, during the event and between attendees.
There are several things we need to do to begin our sharing.
1. The first thing we need to do is determine our audience… Who are you targeting? Who is your unique audience? How are they going to find this info? Who in that group has a huge influence in your target group and can help you spread your message?
2. Create a # Hashtag… which we learned earlier is a way to aggregate info about a topic, which is basically a keyword that ties everything together. I have several but I am the head of Atlanta Bloggers and we use the #atlblog – so everybody that communicates about the event uses that # so that you can search for it and see all the conversation that surrounds the events.
3. Do a search on Twitter http://search.twitter.com (I prefer the advanced search so I can search by area) for certain keywords that may encompass and surround your niche market. Type in keywords and see what people in your niche are talking about. Who they are and follow them. Engage them and let them know about your event.
4. If the event is big enough and ongoing. An option may be to think about creating its own Twitter Handle.
5. Get your current network and followers to RT(forward) and share the invitation with their followers. Give them a discount code to share with their group. It gets them involved but also added value to their network.
It is true ladies and gentlemen i will be stepping down as commercial director of Sledge and will be leaving to pursue new ventures at the end of September.
After 11 years, the time is right for me to leave Sledge and to pursue new ventures. These are very interesting times and I am currently looking at new challenges within the experiential industry. I’ll be remaining with Sledge until the end of September ensuring a smooth handover and helping the team to hopefully celebrate successes at the forthcoming Event Awards! I’ve had a great time at Sledge and have been privileged to work with a fantastic team of very talented people.
Nic Cooper, Sledge CEO, said: “I’d like to thank Ian for the tremendous contribution he has made to the Sledge business over the years and wish him every success for the future.”
At present, there are no plans to replace Irving.
You can read more on this story at Event Magazine.
We find that in difficult economic times there is an even greater demand for research to prove to advertisers that they are getting a return on every marketing penny they invest. This is especially true of niche or emerging marketing activity such as experiential.
Continental Research has evaluated the impact of over 50 experiential campaigns to date so are able to comment on ways of measuring impact. Different types of experiential activity call for different research approaches, but generally our preferred method of measuring impact uses a two stage approach:
At stage 1 we send recruiters to the event to enlist potential respondents from the crowd of event attendees, and collect their contact details. Stage 2 takes place approximately a fortnight later when we conduct telephone interviews with the attendees who we recruited. We leave a fortnight before interviewing to allow respondents time to purchase whatever product or service was being promoted – something we like to measure. Also bear in mind it would not be feasible to conduct the interview at the event itself as the brand experience is usually so immersive that to ask respondents, for example, whether they have heard of that brand would be slightly ridiculous!
We also conduct interviews with a sample of people who did not attend the event. These are matched to the attendee sample on demographics and key behaviour, thus allowing us to compare the two samples and attribute any uplifts in brand awareness, positive perceptions of the brand and purchase solely to the experiential activity.
Due to the large number of campaigns we have measured we have been able to build normative data (i.e. average scores) on some key brand metrics. This has the added benefit of allowing us to put clients’ results into broader context by comparing any uplift on their brand’s metrics against the average uplift.
The research has found that the impact of experiential marketing is truly phenomenal. Even two weeks after being exposed to the activity our norms show that typically someone who attended an experiential event is 89% more likely to cite that brand spontaneously than a non-attendee and 303% more likely to recall advertising spontaneously. This compares very favourably indeed against the impact of other advertising media we have measured.
Much of this can be attributed to how positive respondents are about the event – on average 85% will score the experiential event either ‘good’ or ‘very good’.
In terms of the impact on longer term metrics we would look at experiential’s impact on brand equity: Earlier this year Continental worked with Sledge – one of the leaders in experiential marketing – to evaluate some activity promoting the NIVEA Visage range.
If we compare perceptions of the range between the exposed and non-exposed samples it’s clear that the experiential activity has had a significant effect on perceptions of the brand (the red arrows denote statistically significant uplift):
Furthermore our normative data shows that 60% of people who attend an experiential event talk to other people about the event – on average between 4 and 5 other people! And 51% of people exposed to experiential marketing go on to recommend that brand typically to 4 other people.
This positive impact of experiential activity on an attendee’s perceptions of the brand and their likelihood to recommend it indicates that as well as boosting the necessary short-term measures (such as awareness of the brand), experiential is also effectively building a deeper, more long term relationship with consumers by significantly and positively influencing the way they think about that brand.
I can confirm that clients are demanding both ROI and also firm proof of the ROI from their experiential activity. It is imperative that experiential is evaluated, but whilst we wholeheartedly encourage our clients to have an evaluation element integrated into their campaign, budgets often dictate that this isn’t possible.
We encourage clients to reserve some budget to evaluate their campaigns, but many clients just don’t have any money. It is a sad fact of these hard times that agencies have to work harder to deliver more creative work that in return delivers a higher number of consumers - but for less budget. So there just isn’t any money left to pay for research and evaluation.
We know that when experiential activity is measured and evaluated the results are simply phenomenal. The work that Continental Research did for us for NIVEA proves this.
Social media and digital can provide a cost effective way to measure the success of experiential work. For last year’s innocent Village Fete we created several social media platforms (using facebook, flickr, you tube etc) for visitors to leave feedback, upload pictures and generally interact and tell innocent and the innocent community about their experiences. These sites helped create a community and turn visitors into advocates, but they were also very effective ways of channelling feedback about the event and of course, the brand.
This article was written in collaboration with my colleague Max Willey of Continental Research
Entertaining and surprising, Ariely’s book unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us and how marketers, manufacturers and advertisers use this to their advantage.
So… the next installment, supplied by my creative director, who had discovered a Penguin 1957 copy of Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders. Not only does it have the type of cover that says “you must have me on your shelf” but the content covered and the tricks used by advertisers to influence consumer behaviours. Even in the 1950’s shoppers were constantly led astray by the advertisers, it shows a rather sinister side to an industry that stripping away at our right to privacy.
I then discovered the following:
ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation.
As yet another festival bites the dust, (Beachdown) it is clear that only the strongest public events will survive the credit crunch.
At first glance it would appear that brand activity at festivals has declined in the past festival year. However, I honestly believe that it is not purely the case that brands are withdrawing, but that they are actually being less frivolous about their choice of festival. It appears that the “build it, brand it and they will come” approach is a thing of the past and rightly so.
I’m an advocate of the collaboration of brands and music as long as it is an enhancement of the music experience as opposed to a distraction or interruption. The last season of festivals really started to show signs of brands trying to totally interrupt the experience. One such example was the inclusion of a skate half pipe provided by an energy drink during a wet Wireless festival in 2008, it was of no value to any of the punters and it was in fact closed for the majority of the event.
This years Wireless Festival was as good as brandless from an experience point of view and it was really noticeable. What was the reason? One brand left and the others followed? Brands had less spend? To be honest, I am not sure but the thought that it was recession based was alleviated when I visited Lovebox the following month.
This year’s Lovebox was saturated with brand activity and if I am really honest, it was not a negative. The fact that there were so many brands there actually worked: the experiences really enhanced the event and the punters sure as hell got into all of the brand spaces I visited.
Clever brands are embracing experiences that are relevant and more often than not involve a great music experience in their own right. It’s not rocket science and it certainly isn’t groundbreaking to make a music event within a music event: Bacardi and Strongbow have been doing it for years with great success and now brands such as Rizla are following suit and building a hell of a following in the process.
Innovation is not necessarily the key to a successful activity, the key is relevance and enhancement. There have been some wonderfully simple executions that will be embraced and advocated by festival visitors - campaigns such as the 10p on a cup by Carling, or the Rizla invisible players for Rizla by Exposure. These memorable branded experiences do a great job with engagement and are very simple to execute, but I am sure they will be around as long as the very successful Strongbow Rooms and The Bacardi B-Bar.
If your product, service and your target demographic are relevant to a certain festival then why would you not consider festivals as part of your strategy. They deliver captive audiences that will engage with you and your product - as long as it fits and it enhances their experience.
The other important factor to consider (seriously consider) is the content that will you get from the involvement in a festival. What sort of amplification will you be afforded and how will you engage with the people you met at that event long after the event has finished?
In these times, ROI is king and if you as a marketer think that being there is enough to drive sales, then you are wrong. There is life beyond live and you must engage and amplify or the tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds that you spend will be worth nothing to the bottom line.
Give your fans something to talk about. Innocent’s village fete showed us that just because it was innocent’s festival, it didn’t mean that the audience forgot about the great experiences that were supplied by the likes of Yorkshire Tea and Pimms. Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful tools in terms of behaviour and opinion changing by consumers.
But if it don’t fit, then don’t try to shoehorn it in, because the consumer will hate you for it.
The targeting comes down to meeting your objectives and the relevance of your offering to the event and its audience. Some brands are lucky that they can strategically fit into many types of festival with little danger of disconnection or lack of relevance. Take for example the Pimms Bus: this experience can happily drop into most form of festivals from arts, historical racing, flying displays and village fetes to multi act music festivals.
Choosing the right festival is an imperative and should be right at the heart of the strategy or you will easily become another ‘me too’ festival player and just be considered ‘Live Spam’.
There is another serious consideration that brands should look at: is their experience and content worthy of a fee?
If your experience is strong enough there is every chance that you will get away with charging consumers for the privilege of being there and then you can further amplify the experience by giving them some price worthy content to take away.
As ever this years V Festival was a stonker and the eminent brand experiences of Strongbow and Bacardi drew in the masses as ever so it proves that there is still huge value to brands that feel festival activity will hit their target audience.
Experiential agency, Sledge has been short listed for four awards at the 2009 Event Awards – considered the event industry’s number one award ceremony.
Sledge has been short listed for the Brand Experience Agency of the Year Award. Exemplary examples of Sledge’s work included the innocent Village Fete– a two day event for 60,000 people held in Regents Park London in August 2008, the NIVEA Visage Road show - a nationwide experiential road show that engaged with over 100,000 people (10% over target) and the Thinkbox Televisionaries Conference – a B2B event described as “as close to perfect as it could ever be!” by Tess Alps, CEO Thinkbox.
Sledge has also been shortlisted for The Green Award – utilising examples from their work with both innocent and O2 – especially their sustainability policies for both the inncocent village fete and the O2 Wireless festival.
Two Sledge events have been short listed for the Best Public or Outdoor Event Award – the innocent Village Fete and the Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 that were held in five different locations nationwide in July and August 2008 and culminated in Trafalgar Square, London.
The Scrum on the Beach series of events for O2 is also short listed for the Best Brand Experience Event Award.
A panel of judges, hand-picked for their expertise, impartiality and respect within the industry, will deliberate all other categories and the winners will be announced at a prestigious award ceremony at London Hilton, Park Lane on Friday 25th September.
The current economy is bringing some awesome opportunities and allowing some clients to be braver than before and force change in their buying behaviours and experiment with new agencies and new channels of communication to support their Live initiatives.
I am thrilled and reinvigorated by the optimism that is sweeping through our industry at the moment. This past month Sledge has been involved in no less than seven pitches from an array of sectors including Beauty, Non Alcoholic drinks, FMCG, Automotive, Health Food and Indulgence… with two wins already confirmed things are in very positive flow.
One other opportunity has come from a Media client that wants to create it’s own event and utilise it’s content to reach out to its target audience from both consumer readers and B2B readers and engage them with a live experience. The unique approach they intend to take is a clever one, for they can see that there is opportunity to generate revenue from their live initiative. The team at the magazine knows that it already has an enormous amount of content that can transcend into a live experience, it has a huge audience and it is fast becoming a bible for its followers. We have been asked to look at replicating the magazine and it’s content and values into a reputable exhibition and awards.
This is not our first experience of this type of initiative, after many months of inept dithering by some ex colleagues, we are now pleased to say that a media client of ours intends to take full ownership of an exciting new event to take place in the UK, the event will see the client act as the curator of its own content in the live environment.
This will be an event that will embrace its audience and readers with a broad program of live content and will see it breakaway from the traditional route that newspapers have taken in the past with traditional sponsorship and the badging of existing events.
It’s yet another proud moment for the agency and one that show’s dedication and trust can get results no matter how difficult the economic climate.
It is now very clear that most if not all marketers are being asked to do more with much less than budget than they have ever had. Today’s corporate demand of “Make more in profits, generate more business, manage more projects, collect more leads, produce more AP’s…” has put many of us in the difficult position of not having the resources to accomplish these goals due to our own demands.
So how is it possible to continue delivering exceptional results without the same level of resources we once had? Here are a couple lessons the current economy is teaching us:
Integration.
During a number of recent client presentations, I have been asked to demonstrate how our agency is aligning our internal human resources and expertise to benefit the clients overall brand objectives.
Similarly, more than ever agencies need to ensure that more of the clients integrated business units were involved in our proposals to support a broader portfolio of their products and services. There are multiple benefits to this focused approach, including exposure to other business opportunities in other sectors of the organisation and streamlining our own internal communications. From a client perspective, it has become clear that combining offerings from our business has led us to deliver richer, more robust experiences, while our clients achieved better ROI.
Expanding Networks and Outsourcing.
Many companies are reducing headcount and simply don’t have the capability, experience and internal resources that they once previously had.
Sledge believes you should view outsourcing in terms of what you can add, not subtract from a collaborative relationship. Outsourcing and strategic collaboration allows a company to create synergies, reduce liability and risk, improve communication and delivery, control costs and ultimately deliver a more significant return on yours and the clients investment. Moreover, outsourcing enables companies to be more efficient with their time, allowing them to channel their efforts on the core business competencies and objectives.
These are just a couple ways the economy is broadening Sledge’s capabilities and strengthening our ability to drive your ROI. Curious… What is the economy teaching you? How will you rise to the top in a down economy?
Over the past month or so we have been paying close attention to our supplier relationships and sitting down to discuss how suppliers and agencies can work harder and be more creative to collaboratively engage with brands to ensure that we inspire the brands we wish to work with. For example we recently ran a full experiential day at the offices of Sledge that gave a group of clients an insight into the strategy and rationale behind some of Sledge’s recent Consumer and B2B experiences.
The day was supported by our friends from Mindstorm who wowed our clients with their installation in the Sledge built ‘O2 Fan Space’ at the Arena. Imagine if the technology from the film Minority Report was available to brands for consumer and internal events… well it is!
Mindstorm is an award-winning software company that helps you do more with surfaces than you ever thought possible. Across surfaces, industries and across the globe, Mindstorm transforms otherwise static surfaces into intelligent displays, and passive customers into active participants.
Also in attendance were our friends from Spoonfed, showing their mobile web services. The number of festivals, conferences and internal business communications events in the UK is rising each year. As this number grows it becomes increasingly important to ensure that customers and employees are highly engaged during events; have the best possible experience; connect with old colleagues and friends; and create beneficial relationships with new people.
Mobienz achieves all of this through mobile applications and interactive mobile web services. We create branded mobile experiences that span the pre-, during, and post-event life cycle and allow event attendees to make the most of their time.
This event then progressed to a fast rib boat trip up the Thames courtesy of London Rib Voyages. The trip was a fast paced tour of London with champagne and entertainment (we were informed that the Kings of Leon had just stepped of the same boat… that upset the ladies in the group!)
I cannot recommend this Thames based experience enough, we had such a great time and there is no faster boat on the river. If you are going to a gig at the world’s greatest music venue then you MUST travel with these guys to top off the experience.
Once at the O2 Arena, we were given a full VIP tour of the building ending in a visit to the amazing British Music Experience played host to some of the worst drumming, singing and jamming to be seen since Boyzone launched their career. Again, this is a must for any music fan of any age.
In all the day was a huge success and the clients walked away inspired and motivated to lift the bar in terms of creativity and to be brave when considering the use of technology to engage consumers and staff alike.
This event also proved to all involved that collaboration between trusted and likeminded agencies can be hugely beneficial in these quieter times and even in the early stages of client relationships, these collaborations can really work in your favour and show that you are prepared to invest time and effort to ensure that clients are aware of the new developments in our industry.
If any of our friends or suppliers would like to try something similar or perhaps you are a venue or service supplier that would like to work with our client base and you have a unique and engaging proposition then please feel free to contact me to discuss.
Britain's Royal Ballet is making its first appearance in Cuba. On Tuesday it began five days of performances that star dancer Carlos Acosta, described as the "event of a lifetime" for his native Cuba.
Ninety-six dancers and band members are taking to the stage in Havana. Performers from Cuban National Ballet will join them for three of the shows. Tickets are priced at 20 Cuban pesos, just under one US dollar and have sold out quickly. Some of the performances will be shown on giant outdoor television screens for free public viewing.
I took interest in this news not because I am a fan but because the interview with the principal dancer Carlos Acosta on the John Humphries show this morning got me thinking about the costs involved in attending such cultural experiences in the UK. During the interview Carlos said “ballet is so important to Cuba and this event is of such historic importance, and it is so cheap in Cuba that anyone can afford to see it”.
In fact the event sold out in minutes so the Cuban Government has ordered that giant screens be placed around the city of Havana to ensure that every citizen has the chance to see the performances and guess what, no brands involved and no fee to see!
This got me thinking about what this exercise must achieve for the cities and perhaps the nations morale and how nice it must be to experience something of such cultural enormity for free and then it got me thinking about the amount of events that the Mayor has been canceling especially in times of such depression for many Londoners.
Wouldn’t it be great to see more events of this type in London and the UK, I had a meeting at the GLA recently were I was informed that they had a serious challenge with taking live immersive experiences that would introduce arts and culture to the more deprived areas of London. An example used was “we could never get a Hackney teenager to attend an event similar to that of the innocent village fete”, “and thus introduce them to healthy living and low tech family entertainment”.
Events like the Thames Festival achieve this so I don’t see why this should be such a challenge for the GLA, perhaps some pop up events that screen empowering and inspirational cultural events to areas of London that are “deprived” and that no doubt have communities that would enjoy such opportunities.
Any comments?
Some Journalist friends and myself are off to Fairford this Sunday to the Royal International Air Tattoo. I have been asked to consult the on the Experiential and Brand Partnership potential of the event.
You may not be aware but this Cold War Nuclear bomber flew one of the most daring bombing raids in RAF history during the Falklands War as revealed in Rowland Whites number one bestseller Vulcan 607 (a great read!).
I am really flattered to have been asked to consult and cant wait to take in the enormity of this event, the attractions and interactive content appears to be vast and I am sure to be impressed by the production value of the event and the work carried out by my host Francesca Heap and her colleagues.
Those that know me will know I am a bit of a food nut and cook and have a number of courses and cooking experiences under my belt, but I’m thinking I’m behind the curve a little when it comes to my discovery of Jamie Oliver’s new venture, RECIPEASE.
These Deli come Cookery School outlets have popped up in Clapham Junction, London and Western Road, Brighton and not only offer Jamie branded products, a wide range of good produce but also really useful experiences to help your confidence in cooking to grow.
I have just booked a lesson so watch this space for an update on the quality of the experience and any hints and tips gained.
