Createlondon - Tom Ernesto - Experiential Marketing Blog

Experiential Marketing Recession Buster?

Who would have thought it? The last subject I thought I would be writing about for the first submission of this blog is recession, every time we open the paper its there glairing back at us. However, with the clouds of recession beginning to pour we sit on our hands pondering what this means for us.

While CEO’s and brand managers are juggling their budgets and looking for places to cut back, we sit with our fingers crossed hoping it will not be the experiential. There is a school of thought that suggests the opposite should be true, that now is the time to be investing in such activity.

Now is when the humble consumer becomes more finical about the choice of brand/service/product they are going to buy in to, so now is the time brands with loyalty survive, while brands without begin to die. It is precisely this time that the consumer will revert back to their trusted brand. Therefore it follows that the winners are the brands that have developed this emotional bond and the brands that continue to build brand loyalty through experiences.

This view is accepted among senior brand marketers throughout the UK, US, Germany and France, with 62% agreeing that experiential marketing will be one of the biggest growth areas over the next 5 years and half of them anticipating growing their experiential marketing spend (MICE Group). Another study suggests that China, Australia, US and Europe were considering raising experiential spend by nearly 75% in 2008 (Jack M).

As consumer sophistication increases and traditional marketing media is filtered out, this is not the time for brand marketers to be firing blanks. Experiential marketing’s unique ability to create a bond that sticks with the consumer through relevant connections is allowing the industry to weather the storm. A recent study confirms faith in the medium with 93% agreeing it generates word of mouth recommendations, 92% that the medium builds brand awareness and relationships and 77% that it generates sales (JM 09).

If we consider that the roots of experiential marketing lye in guerrilla marketing, experiential marketing is the perfect recession buster. At its heart this form of marketing is less expensive than conventional methods with a high ROE, it is flexible and can be mobilised at the drop of a hat to meet a slump in market share or to take advantage of a new trend.

The futures bright if possibly a bit orange.