13 Examples of Experiential Advertising Campaigns That’ll Give You Critical Occasion Envy

In relation to work occasions, commerce exhibits, or promotional campaigns, they will actually be hit and miss. It is not solely the product that motivates folks to return again to a model, however slightly the best way they expertise it. That is the place experiential advertising is available in.

Whereas a stunning variety of folks have not heard of the idea, it is form of an enormous deal — 77% of entrepreneurs use experiential advertising as an important a part of a model’s promoting technique.

On this submit, we’ll be taking a deep dive into what experiential advertising is and share 14 of the good campaigns that break down how this technique successfully works. By inspecting these campaigns, you can apply the teachings realized to your individual enterprise to get essentially the most out of your promoting efforts.

Experiential advertising (also referred to as xm advertising, engagement advertising, occasion advertising, on the bottom advertising, dwell advertising, or participation advertising), may sound a bit like occasion advertising, which is sensible — experiential campaigns do are usually event-centric. However there are additionally instances once they don’t have anything to do with a particular occasion, as you will see from the examples we picked.

When an engagement advertising marketing campaign is event-centric, it is devoted much less to the kind of occasion — like a live performance, competition, convention, and many others. — and extra to interactions between the model and the client. (If you have already got an occasion within the works, try this information to including experiential components to it.)

What do experiential entrepreneurs do?

An experiential marketer is in command of creating and executing on the technique for a consumer’s dwell, interactive advertising campaigns or in-person occasions.

An experiential marketer’s function is just like a model ambassador, occasion planner, or model supervisor, and usually includes the next duties: 

• Brainstorm modern experiential advertising campaigns to extend model consciousness, work together with the general public, and create constructive model notion 
• Carry out market analysis to grasp what forms of experiential advertising campaigns would carry out finest with a particular viewers 
• Create occasions or dwell, interactive campaigns to assist companies successfully join with its goal audiences
• Lead occasions and take cost of logistics because it pertains to occasion administration 
• Observe, analyze, and report on all experiential advertising marketing campaign efficiency
• Work with cross-functional groups together with model, inventive, digital, social, and public relations
• Journey to occasions as obligatory to make sure vendor compliance and execution, gross sales help, and general occasion success

Why Experiential Advertising Issues At present

In accordance with Forbes, experiential advertising can bolster an enduring connection between prospects and a model. It might probably additionally help you acquire important information about taking part customers, which might then assist you to enhance your technique. 

These campaigns can take an built-in method. The first objective is to expertise a model in a tangible, offline means, however you will nonetheless need an internet dialogue round it.

When you think about that 87% of video entrepreneurs say video offers them a very good return on their funding — and that individuals are twice as prone to share video content material with their buddies than every other sort of content material — it is sensible to include a digital component. A branded hashtag, for instance, can get folks speaking concerning the expertise.

1. Warner Bros Photos: Barbie Film Selfie Generator

The extremely anticipated movie, Barbie, has been creatively marketed to followers of all ages and backgrounds — by way of distinctive trailers and immersive generative AI that allow you to develop into your individual Barbie doll cowl.

By visiting the web site BarbieSelfie.ai, customers have been greeted with the message, “Welcome to Barbie Land, the place you could be Barbie (or Ken). Click on beneath to develop into an on the spot icon! #BarbieTheMovie”.

Greta Gerwig’s interpretation of Barbie supposedly leans into all the varied and uncommon releases of Mattel toys, and their advertising group constructed on that concept by making an AI device that permits customers to establish as professionals in several fields, personalities, and colour tales.

This advertising marketing campaign is an effective instance of an experiential advertising marketing campaign because it makes moviegoers really feel good to see themselves represented within the coming Barbie film and makes them really feel as if they’re part of the Barbie fantasy expertise that youngsters (and now adults) really feel once they play with Barbie merchandise.

It additionally serves as film promotion between buddies, household, and followers as those that submit the images unfold the film launch date as each picture has its premiere date, July twenty first, 2023, on each picture generated.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Lean into new tech like generative AI on your subsequent advertising marketing campaign. Its newness and image-creation capabilities make it an enticing device that will get consideration.
• Inclusion is essential. The advertising group behind the Barbie film might have strictly marketed the movie to younger girls, however as an alternative, it is completed an incredible job of capturing the eye of all ages and identities — constructing some exceptional hype for this Summer time.

2. Pink Bull: Stratos

Pink Bull has been on the forefront of utmost sports activities protection for nearly so long as the model has existed. However the firm introduced its content material advertising to new heights — a world-record peak, really.

Affectionately named Stratos, Pink Bull’s superterrestrial advertising marketing campaign featured Felix Baumgartner, a skydiver from Austria who partnered with Pink Bull to set the world file for highest skydive.

That file: 128,000 ft, about 24 miles above Earth’s floor. Gulp.

To drag off this wonderful stunt, Pink Bull housed Felix in a small communication capsule and despatched him as much as the stratosphere utilizing a big helium-filled balloon. And what’s really exceptional is that his ascent and preparation to leap, alone, allowed him to interrupt one other file earlier than touchdown safely again on Earth (spoiler alert): Pink Bull streamed the whole occasion on-line, and noticed the highest viewing site visitors of any dwell stream ever broadcast on YouTube — at simply over 8 million viewers.

Need to see that have once more? Take a look at Pink Bull’s recap video beneath. I will not lie, I indulged in a rewatching as I wrote this text.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Do not underestimate the facility of suspense when internet hosting an occasion your viewers can personal a chunk of themselves. Having the ability to witness one thing new, and perhaps just a little scary, is such a private expertise. And the higher the outcome, the longer your viewers will keep in mind and reminisce over it.
• Oh, and in case you can put your model within the file books whilst you’re at it, that is fairly cool too.

3. Refinery29: 29Rooms

For about three years now, way of life model Refinery29 has hosted the 29Rooms occasion: What it calls “an interactive funhouse of fashion, tradition, & expertise.” Because the identify suggests, it consists of 29 individually branded and curated rooms — and attendees can expertise one thing totally different in each. The rooms are designed and created with model companions, who vary from personalities like artists and musicians, to consumer-facing firms like Dunkin’ Donuts, Dyson, and Cadillac.

Every year, 29Rooms has a unique theme, with this 12 months’s being “Flip It Into Artwork.” Attendees, it appears, are inspired to enter every room and use the environment to create one thing — one room, as an illustration, invitations members to placed on punching gloves and hit punching baggage that every produce a unique sound when contacted to create a symphony of types. A very hands-on expertise, certainly.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Go nuts, however preserve it on-brand. An expertise needs to be memorable, however related to the folks attending.
• Companion with creators like artists and musicians to create experiences, particularly if they’re recognizable throughout the area the place you are attempting to construct or increase an viewers.

4. Lean Delicacies: #WeighThis

It is disconcerting what number of commercials immediately inform girls to alter one thing about themselves. Sitting on the sofa and watching TV for simply two minutes, I had already misplaced depend of the variety of instances that message got here up.

That is why it is so refreshing to see manufacturers like Lean Delicacies, whose advertising used to middle solely on weight reduction, stray from diet-centric messaging. And its #WeighThis marketing campaign is a superb instance of simply that.

As a part of the marketing campaign, Lean Delicacies curated a gallery of “scales” in New York’s Grand Central Station, and invited girls to “weigh in.” However this is the catch: The scales have been really small boards the place girls might write down how they actually needed to be weighed. And slightly than specializing in their weight in kilos — or something pertaining to physique picture — the ladies opted to be measured by issues like being again in faculty at 55, caring for 200 homeless kids every day, or being the only real supplier to 4 sons.

What’s notably cool about this expertise is that not one of the members really work together with a Lean Delicacies product. Nobody was interrupted, requested to pattern one thing, or stopped to reply questions. In actual fact, nobody was actually requested to do something — the show itself was sufficient to make folks cease, observe, after which voluntarily work together.

Lean Delicacies found out what message it needed to ship: “Certain, we make stuff that matches right into a wholesome way of life. However remember about your accomplishments. That issues greater than the quantity on the size.” However as an alternative of blatantly promoting that, it created an interactive expertise across the message.

Nonetheless, the expertise was clearly branded, to verify folks related it with Lean Delicacies. The corporate’s Twitter deal with and a branded hashtag have been featured on the show in massive textual content, which made it simple for folks to share the expertise on social media. And that undoubtedly paid off — the whole #WeighThis marketing campaign led to a 33% improve in constructive model notion, and earned a 6.5 million attain simply throughout week one.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Do not interrupt — particularly in case you’re attempting to seize somebody’s consideration in New York Metropolis, like Lean Delicacies was. For those who create an expertise that gives worth to the individuals who go by it, they’re extra prone to take part.
• Work out the message you actually wish to your model to ship — that will or might not be instantly tied to an precise product, and it is perhaps one thing that your model hasn’t stated earlier than. Then, construct an expertise round it.

5. M&M: Taste Rooms

For those who’ve ever had a peanut M&M versus common M&M debate, you realize folks can get keen about sweet. So, when M&M wanted to decide on its subsequent taste, the corporate selected to take action with an immersive pop-up in New York Metropolis. 

The expertise included “taste rooms”, which have been every full with decor and fragrances distinctive to a sure taste. The pop-up additionally included snack and drink lounges with M&M-themed cocktails — which, I am prepared to guess, we’re nice alternatives for M&M to look on totally different attendees’ social pages. 

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Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• With each advertising marketing campaign you launch, discover the “enjoyable” issue. It is simple to get caught up in how a lot your model helps remedy your buyer’s downside. However what about them, as folks, would additionally convey them enjoyment?
• Take into account the way you may leverage your viewers for key enterprise selections. In the event that they’re those who will likely be shopping for and utilizing your product, they’re additionally those best-equipped to inform you what’s working, and what is not. An experiential marketing campaign is one good alternative to attach instantly along with your customers and create satisfying experiences through which they will present perspective. 

6. Profit Cosmetics: ‘A Lashtastic Digital-Media Marketing campaign’ 

In immediately’s digital-first world, a very good expertise does not must be in-person. However historically, customers nonetheless wish to take a look at out new make-up merchandise earlier than buying — which created a problem for Profit Cosmetics throughout the worldwide pandemic, through which most retail places have been closed. 

To attract consideration to its new Magnet Excessive Lengthening Mascara, Profit, working with As a result of Inventive Experiences, selected to create an immersive expertise through which customers might acquire tokens and trade these tokens for reductions, mascaras, or digital magnificence consultations on Profit’s web site. Better of all, they used Augmented Actuality to create a enjoyable, distinctive expertise for his or her customers. 

This is the way it labored: As soon as customers signed into Profit’s Digital Actuality platform, they have been requested to drop their location. Subsequent, because of Augmented Actuality, the prospects might use their telephones to seek out tokens of their bodily area. 

The marketing campaign proved extremely efficient — together with a conversion charge of over 50%, a CTR of 39.4%, and a mean gamification dwell time of two minutes and 22 seconds. 

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Takeaways for Entrepreneurs: 

• Even adults love video games. Take into account the way you may gamify your individual expertise and supply distinctive challenges or contests to drive engagement. On this case, the expertise is enjoyable whether or not or not a consumer purchases the product — which is essential in direction of creating a very good consumer expertise. 
• If an in-person expertise is not possible, get inventive with expertise, VR, or AR to create the following smartest thing. These days, digital experiences can really feel simply as actual as in-person. You may must suppose past conventional social campaigns to seize your viewers’s consideration.

7. Misereor: Charity Donation Billboard

When was the final time you used money to pay for one thing?

Powerful to recollect, proper? We’re form of a species of “senseless swipers” — globally, an estimated 357 billion non-cash transactions are made annually. And realizing how usually we whip out our playing cards, German aid NGO Misereor determined to place our unhealthy behavior to good use with its charitable giving billboard.

It was what they referred to as SocialSwipe. Arrange in airports, these digital posters would show pictures of some issues that Misereor works to resolve — starvation was depicted with a loaf of bread, for instance.

However the display screen was geared up with a card reader, and when somebody went to swipe a card — for a small payment of two€ — the picture moved to make it appear to be the cardboard was slicing a slice of bread.

Even cooler? On the consumer’s financial institution assertion, there can be a thank-you word from Misereor, with a hyperlink to show their one-time 2€ donation right into a month-to-month one.

Evidently, this expertise required loads of coordination — with banks, airports, and a cellular fee platform. Due to that, the expertise could not simply be a one-time prevalence. The individuals who interacted with it have been later reminded of it throughout a fairly frequent prevalence: receiving a financial institution assertion.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Visually symbolize the impression of taking part within the expertise. Folks interacting with this show have been proven precisely the place their cash was going — like slicing bread for a hungry household. (Infographics work properly right here, too — try our templates.)
• Companion with one other model to create a fair higher expertise. On this occasion, Misereor labored with Stripe.com for the fee expertise, and with monetary establishments to get a branded message on customers’ financial institution statements. (And keep tuned — we’ll speak extra concerning the worth of co-branding right here later.)
• Do not be afraid to nurture your leads. Even in case you do not use a branded hashtag to combine the expertise with an internet component, discover a strategy to remind somebody that they participated.

8. Lululemon: Proud & Current

To have a good time Satisfaction Month, Lululemon labored with MKG to create an immersive, considerate expertise that mixed an enticing social media marketing campaign with real-life community-centered occasions. 

First, the athletic model requested its personal workers and ambassadors to mirror on subjects related to the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. The model shared their responses through pictures and video on Lululemon’s Instagram web page all through the month. 

Subsequent, the model created an artwork set up at Hudson River Park that mirrored those self same responses. This area, which stayed within the Park for 2 weeks, inspired passersbys to learn and mirror. That is not all, although — Lululemon additionally created a community-focused yoga follow in the identical park, which aimed to boost cash for The Trevor Venture. 

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Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Take into account the way you may create a cohesive expertise to unit your on-line and offline presence. On this case, Lululemon leveraged its social accounts to succeed in its 3.7 million followers, however then created just a few particular, in-person experiences to drive the purpose house for its New York-based neighborhood. 
• An experiential advertising marketing campaign should not simply deal with promoting a services or products — it oftentimes can, and will, deal with a bigger situation. On this case, Lululemon’s dedication to Satisfaction Month elevated model consciousness and loyalty.

9. Häagen-Dazs: Strawberries & Cream with Wimbledon

To attract consideration to its new, limited-edition ice cream taste Strawberries & Cream, Häagen-Dazs labored with Wonderland to create a GIF picture sales space on the tennis championship Wimbledon. 

The sales space included a swing (playfully alluding to tennis), which inspired well-known tennis gamers, fashions, and influencers to take footage to submit on social media — a very good alternative to gather user-generated content material and increase their attain rapidly. 

Naming itself “the official ice cream of Wimbledon”, Häagen-Dazs created a business for the restricted version taste, as effectively: 

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs 

•  Take into account the way you may create enjoyable alternatives to encourage user-generated content material. This does not have to interrupt the financial institution, both — there are many budget-friendly choices to create small cubicles at enterprise conferences that also embrace that Instagram-worthy look. 

10. Fb: Fb IQ Reside

Fb — who additionally owns Instagram — has at all times understood how a lot information it has on how folks use these platforms. For that motive, it created the Fb IQ Reside expertise.

For this expertise, that information was used to curate dwell scenes that depicted the information. Amongst them was the IQ Mart: A “retail” setting that represented the web shopper’s conversion path when utilizing social media for getting selections. There was additionally a quintessential Instagram cafe, chock filled with millennial-esque picture alternatives and other people snapping them — latte artwork and all.

The marketing campaign wasn’t simply memorable. It additionally proved to be actually useful — 93% of attendees (and there have been over 1500 of them) stated that the expertise supplied them with worthwhile insights on use Fb for enterprise.

However what makes these insights so worthwhile? Momentum Worldwide, the company behind Fb IQ Reside, places it completely: “After we perceive what issues to folks … we could be what issues to them.” In different phrases, we are able to form our messaging across the issues which are essential to our goal audiences.

And by creating this expertise, Fb was in a position to accomplish that for its personal model. In creating this expertise, it additionally created a constructive model notion for just a few audiences — together with, for instance, the individuals who might need been uncertain of use the platform for enterprise.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

11. Vans: Home of Vans

Lately, Vans hosted Home of Vans pop-up places at skateparks inside main cities like NYC and Chicago. This gave skate boarders a spot to satisfy up, join, hearken to dwell music, and shred. 

Vans additionally used these skatepark-based popups to advertise the launch of their new shoe line which honored David Bowie. 

With Vans being a number one shoe line of skate boarders, pop-ups in and close to skateparks seem to be a pure match for an experiential advertising expertise. 

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• Establish your viewers’s hobbies and embrace them. Within the instance above, Vans knew that they’d an enormous skateboarding viewers, in order that they crafted an occasion to reward them whereas intriguing different skate boarders.
• Equally, if you realize you’ve audiences based mostly in sure places, go to the place they’re on your experiential marketing campaign. This can present much less friction and make your audiences really feel like you’re actually assembly them the place they’re.

12. Rick & Morty: Rickmobile

To advertise the return of the animated Grownup Swim sequence Rick & Morty, Cartoon Community despatched a automobile across the nation formed like Rick, a principal character and mischievous time-traveling grandfather on the present. By advertising totally on social media, the corporate was in a position to get the marketing campaign to go viral. 

Folks started following the place the Rickmobile was through a dwell vacation spot web page on the grownup swim web site.

When the Rickmobile hit main cities, folks flocked to it to take an image with Rick’s face and enter the cellular the place they may buy merchandise associated to the TV present.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

• It is okay to embrace social media to create anticipation and pleasure round your pop-up or expertise, simply as Grownup Swim and Cartoon Community did. 
• Embracing weirdness, like that of a large cartoon head driving across the nation, is usually a useful strategy to make your occasion shareable or intriguing — even to individuals who may not comply with the content material or firm that you simply’re selling.
• For those who can work in product gross sales, take into account it. On this instance, the community not solely promoted the tv present, but it surely additionally offered merchandise associated to it. So, primarily, folks instantly paid for points of a giant scale advert.

13. Coca-Cola: FIFA World Cup VR Expertise

In Zurich, throughout the FIFA World Cup, Coca-Cola positioned a VR expertise in entrance of a practice station. With the expertise, you possibly can stand in entrance of a display screen and see a well-liked soccer participant subsequent to you. You may then follow a soccer transfer with the athlete or compete in your individual mini soccer event.

Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

Whereas VR is not accessible to many entrepreneurs, this expertise did have just a few scaleable methods related to it.

• To offer your attendees an expertise of worth, take into account internet hosting an professional who can reply questions or give ideas associated to your advertising marketing campaign.
• Embrace main occasions. If you realize a metropolis or space will likely be extremely populated because of a sport or one other occasion, take into account inserting a pop-up there that someway pertains to that viewers or the occasion itself.

Clearly, taking some very calculated dangers labored out fairly effectively for these firms. So in relation to creating an expertise along with your model, do not be afraid to suppose outdoors of the field — and do not be afraid to work collectively on it with another person.

Make investments a while into serious about the methods folks might work together with you, even when it appears just a little nutty. If it is aligned with what you do and executed thoughtfully, folks will likely be speaking — in one of the best ways potential.