From the horse's mouth: Why brands love experiential?
Newton rightly said that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Therefore brands push hard to convert these opposite reactions into positive ones. Experiential Marketing is a great way to strengthen the consumer-brand bond and boost retention. It is indeed an effective way for a brand to understand its target audience and thereby increase its reach while building connections.
It is fantastic to see how several brands are increasingly ready to utilize their budget in potential marketing campaigns while they shift from the traditional means of marketing. What is more important than just giving product-centered discounts and offers is providing experiences.
A brand is only as good as its ability to deliver services and as a player in the competition it is important for them to evolve with the changing trends of the market. EE speaks to the industry experts to understand their reasons for shifting from traditional marketing to experiential means and how it helped them in their various initiatives.
Jabong.com has recently been seen stepping outside its virtual boundaries to embrace experiential in exclusive and innovative ways. Throwing light on the recently concluded Jabong ‘India Online Fashion Week’, Praveen Sinha, CEO and Co-Founder of Jabong says “At Jabong, fashion is our focus and in order to connect and engage with our target consumers at large scale fashion events (LFW, JOFW etc.) help in brand building and positioning. For an online fashion retailer to invest in an experiential platform for the first time, resulted in glory.
The fashion show provided an opportunity to several upcoming artists and designers to display their expertise in the field. This is how the brand was able to connect with the upcoming and growing section of the fashion industry. “We bridged the gap between budding talent and the fashion world. Through such activities we give young upcoming designers a platform to showcase their talent.”
By advancing into an experiential activity, the brands can create encouragement from their potential buyers and gain recognition.
Mr. Sinha says, “We are bringing global fashion brands to India and through launches at these platforms we not only connect with the fashion fraternity and inform them about the brands, but at the same time it helps in visibility of these brands across markets.”
On speaking to Rathin Lehri, CMO, Meru Cabs on experiential activities, he said: “our core consumer is the time starved executive who is constantly on the go. The one meal that really gets ignored is breakfast. Kellogg’s and we saw a good co-marketing opportunity where there is a strong value proposition for the consumer.”
The initiative helped in achieving wider consumer engagement and it led to creating a property called ‘breakfast cab’. He further explains “it’s a small innovation which adds tremendous convenience to the time starved consumer.”
Contradicting on the topic of spends involved, Meru feels that even small gestures can make a huge difference to the lives of the people.
Mayank Shah, Group Product Manager, Parle Products, says experiential space has given them the freedom to engage with the consumers at much deeper level despite the high costs involved.
“In case of traditional advertising on television or print, cost per contact is very low,” says Shah. “Despite lot of spends go into experiential activities it still initiates a great quality of engagement with the consumer that makes a lot of sense.”
He feels it is very much imperative to create trials in food products, which is the company’s main product category. “Sometimes it’s necessary to
make consumer sample your products,” says Shah. Dwelling on the advancement of brands into the experiential domain, Shah feels it provides a great brand recall and consumer understanding.
A brand when provides an unforgettable experience, nothing like it. Experiential activity thus builds loyalty and drive sales. A great customer experience helps in gaining popularity for the brand, may it be through an exciting event or a product trial.
Brand managers nowadays think out of the box in their approach towards their potential consumers and devote both time and energy along with budgets in the experiential space for better return on investments.
