Experiential Marketing Defined

What is Experiential Marketing? Experiential Marketing is a methodology, a concept that moves beyond the traditional “features-and-benefits” marketing. Experiential Marketing connects consumers with brands in personally relevant and memorable ways.

Experiential Marketing is the next marketing methodology that can bridge the disconnect between consumers' increasing demand to engage marketers and brands on their own terms, and the slow-footed reluctance of traditional marketers to move away from mass-media marketing and the one-way, command-and-control ways of building brands they have been accustomed to for decades.

The idea of Experiential Marketing reflects a right brain bias because it is about fulfilling consumers’ aspirations to experience certain feelings – comfort and pleasure on one hand, and avoidance of discomfort and displeasure on the other. Experiential Marketing occurs in person. It is a direct interaction one-on-one between a brand and an individual consumer. This experience creates a stronger relationship with the consumer.

In contrast, traditional product centric marketing reflects a left brain bias because it generally seeks to persuade consumers by invoking rational factors that position the advertised brand as better than competing brands. Product centric marketing presumes a degree of rationality in consumers’ decision-making that contemporary brain science refutes. Consumers’ decisions are much more influenced by emotionally generated feelings than by their rationally derived thought.

Category Growth
Experiential Marketing has become an accepted alternative marketing methodology. The term "Experiential Marketing" now receives 327,000 hits on Google. Experiential Marketing continues to grow in popularity as it becomes a more widely adopted methodology by mainstream marketers.

Experiential Marketing is also termed as customer experience marketing because the idea is to communicate the essence of the Brand through a personalized experience.

The Need
With emerging media entering the marketplace on a regular basis, vying for consumers’ attention is becoming increasingly difficult. The 30-second spot is proving to be less effective and marketers are forced to look for alternatives. Consumers themselves have even resorted to avoiding messages whenever possible by installing pop-up blockers or fast forwarding their DVR (such asTiVo) to avoid commercials.

Experiential Marketing was once seen as an alternative approach to reaching the most media-savvy audience. It offers an engaging, entertaining and interactive brand experience unmatched by traditional marketing. In today's marketing landscape Experiential Marketing is leading the way.

In the past ten years, Experiential Marketing has become a hot topic in the branding world. Some of the most prominent brands such as Levi’s, Nokia, Harley-Davidson, Wells Fargo, and Volkswagon have implemented successful experiential programs to reach their target. In larger examples, nationwide Experiential Marketing campaigns have been launched by Starbucks, Proctor & Gamble, General Motors, Cadbury Schweppes, Unilever, Kraft Foods, Expedia, T-Mobile USA, and Direct TV.

Database Marketing, Data Capture and Brandstand
Database marketing is a form of direct marketing using databases of customers or potential customers to generate personalized communications in order to promote a product or service for marketing purposes. The method of communication can be any addressable medium, as in direct marketing.

The distinction between direct and database marketing stems primarily from the attention paid to the analysis of data. Database marketing emphasizes the use of statistical techniques to develop models of customer behavior, which are then used to select customers for communications. As a consequence, database marketers also tend to be heavy users of data warehouses, because having a greater amount of data about customers increases the likelihood that a more accurate model can be built.

The "database" is usually name, email and postal address, and transaction history details from internal sales or delivery systems, or a bought-in compiled "list" from another organization, which has captured that information from its customers. Typical sources of compiled lists are charity donation forms, application forms for any free product or contest, product warranty cards, subscription forms, and credit application forms.

The communications generated by database marketing may be described as junk mail or spam, if it is unwanted by the addressee. Direct and database marketing organizations, on the other hand, argue that a targeted letter or e-mail to a customer, who wants to be contacted about offerings that may interest the customer, benefits both the customer and the marketer.

American Brandstand has developed and patented their unique concept to achieve unprecedented results in the Experiential & Database Marketing methodology of advertising.