Marketing today has changed and everyone knows it. Gone are the days where a billboard in Times Square was worth its cost. Gone are the days when sponsoring an event was enough. Gone are the days you could spend a million in tv ads and your marketing efforts would be completed. We live in a world of constant communication and access to information. Marketers now have to get creative.
Enter the daily deal sites, enter interactive events sponsored by brands, enter pop up activation stores. Obviously you can see this through LivingSocial. The pitch goes something like this “hey, do you need new customers? we have x millions of subscribers. want a piece of that local business owner?”. Can you tell I’m not in sales? The exciting thing about this time is the freedom to be as creative as you can be. Examples can be seen anywhere.
Walking around New York I found a Delta activation store for their new sky lounge. A friend and I went in, played around and left with some free Shake Shack burger coupons. Everyone wins: Delta tells a story and sticks with the customer while also providing an outlet for other merchants to ride their marketing event.
The creativity knows no bounds. Red Bull is another example, how does a energy drink market you ask? By talking about everything but the drink. The sponsor a world wide Flugtag event, music academies and even a soccer team in New York. The customer interacts with the brand so frequently but without ever hearing the mention the competition. This is an accomplishment as most companies are forced to acknowledge their competitor.
One industry behind the curve is the car industry. Their marketing efforts are stiff i.e. look at this car versus this car blah blah blah. I am interested to see how they can use interactive marketing to their advantage. Conversely, my favorite industry has jumped right in. The music industry has aligned with some major brands resulting in great experiential events. The best example is Budweiser with Made in America. Budweiser sponsored this concert in Philadelphia and they did not stop there.
They set up a tour crossing a dozen cities featuring a different band in each city. The tickets were free and were raffled off online. At the event itself there was free Budweiser served. The marketing for them was more effective than an Super Bowl ad could of been. People watched the build up as more cities and more artists were announced prior to the big show in Philly. The hype around cities and the bands coming was everywhere. In DC the hype for Big Gigantic on every mode of social media from pre announcement to show time. Through event marketing Budweiser found a way to change the conversation but keep the brand involved. I have yet to find an data on the event but if anyone has some please share.
The amount of information we receive everyday is unfathomable. There has to be something truly unique to cause someone to put down their iPhone, take out their headphones and pay attention. It’s about time we went back to the drawing board and got creative.
my feet don't want to go to sleep 