I just spent the last several days at the Experiential Marketing Power conference in Chicago. I was a speaker and also the chair of the conference, which means I got to meet a lot of interesting people and hear their ideas. Here are just a few of the interesting things I heard:
* David Lewis, Chief Marketing Officer of ING Direct, talked about the impact experiential marketing can make when your brand doesn't have as much money to spend on marketing as the competitor. Lewis feels that "quality per impression" is more important than "cost per impression", so they create face-to-face experiences where people can get to know their brand. One involved spending a day in San Francisco paying for the fare of every single person riding the subway, with the message being that ING Direct helps you save money. They had their own employees dressed up in orange jumpsuits buying people's tickets. I love their sense of humor and their sense of theater. You just know the experience they created did a lot more for them as they launched in a new market than simply running ads.
* Richard Schreuer of marketing research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey talked about how to measure the impact of advocacy. According to their data, advocates tend to recommend products to an average of 6 other people. They've also found that receiving a recommendation on a product increases purchase intent by an average of 6%. So by combining the number of people who say they will recommend a product with the estimated increased purchase intent, you can estimate the financial impact of advocacy. I thought that was pretty interesting, given all of the discussion these days around loyalty and lovemarks.
* Bud Hanson, Director of Experiential Marketing at Purina, talked about the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge. Since Purina can't market to its end user (except, perhaps, to that dog everyone's been talking about lately who has the intelligence level of a 3-year-old), they must create meaningful experiences for the parents of pets. The Incredible Dog Challenge is a dog show for the everyday pet owner, showcasing dogs competing in the things that dogs love to do. Bud talked about the Challenge as being a visual reflection of the result of good nutrition - I really liked the concept of events being a sensory reference to the benefits your products provide.
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