AdWeek Europe: Experiential Marketing Creates New Brand Marketing Values

Consumers’ search for experiences is creating new valuable and extended opportunities for brand marketers.

So said panellists at Advertising Week Europe during a session called “Time Well Spent: Understanding Why Consumers are Seeking Experiences, Not Things.”

Asked what consumers value from experience, and why they are engaging with it more than with things that are tangible, Jenna Pelkey, director of global media & marketing strategy at GE, said: “’Having’ no longer means something physical and tangible in your hands. People now accept the transaction of living in other people’s moments, and there’s something there that is really valuable for a brand.”

As an example she highlighted how all consumers globally can now experience an event such as the Olympics through media, platforms, and content. “There are an infinite number of touch points and you can feel the energy, so physically being in a place is no longer the equity.”

As a result, Lindsey Ingram, engagement director at Barkley, said the agency “has had to adjust how we approach problems and how we speak to consumers.”

One such shift in approach comes from keeping two audiences in mind when planning experiential marketing rather than going through traditional media.

“There is the one-on-one and personal interaction you’re having, but [as a brand] you have to consider what is the message and feeling you want them to take away, so that when they’re sharing with friends, you [as a brand] have that extended interaction and that extended value of your message,” said Ingram.

In turn, this requires a new way to measure engagement rates. Rather than using traditional KPIs, social conversation and brand favourability studies are useful to see value, noted Brian Schultz, CEO and partner, Magnetic Collaborative.