Seven Principles of Success for Experiential Marketing

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For the past two years, a team from Synergy Events has attended the PRSA International Conference to connect with public relations professionals about how our experiential marketing events drive PR for our clients.

At one of the workshops in San Diego in November, Daryl McCullough from Paine PR presented his Seven Principles of Success during his terrific "Best in Buzz" workshop.

Inspired by Daryl's talk, I have put together a list of Seven Principles of Success for Experiential Marketing. While all seven of the principles are listed, each of the next blogs on this topic will offer more detail on one of the Seven Principles, including some cool event marketing programs we've either executed or seen in the field.

1. Integrate your events. Events should not occur in a silo. Whenever possible, events should incorporate as many marketing disciplines as possible including advertising, grassroots, PR, social media and sponsorship initiatives.

An experiential marketing event by Snickers and David Arquette this past summer is a great example of taking an integrated approach. Arquette lived in a lounge on top of the Madison Square Garden marquee for part of two days to draw attention to the brand's "Bar Hunger" campaign and Feeding America, the nation's leading domestic hunger organization.

As you can see in this video, the event was fully integrated. Advertising, PR, grass roots, social media and retail tactics were used to help make the event a smash hit for Snickers.

• Advertising: Note the giant Snickers ad on the billboard behind the lounge on top of the MSG Marquee.
• PR: David Arquette, chairman of the entertainment council for Feeding America, was obviously the media hook. The story was everywhere, from the Today Show to Howard Stern to the newspapers on the west coast. The event component (the lounge) in a non-traditional location (on top of the Madison Square Garden Marquee) made the story even more interesting.
•  Grassroots: Snickers-branded ambassadors distributed information and collected money for the cause from people around MSG. Arquette also ventured outside of the lounge and utilized a large Snickers bullhorn to get the attentions of passersby.
• Social Media: Snickers started a Bar Hunger Facebook page to collect funds from consumers and Arquette tweeted about his experience during his two day stay.
• Retail: The Bar Hunger messaging appeared on millions of Snickers bars and on P.O.P displays at retail outlets across the country.

Is a fully integrated approach always possible? No. But remember, it doesn't necessarily take a big budget to have a fully integrated experiential marketing event that leads to a huge win for a client.

Here's a schedule of our upcoming posts on the Seven Principles of Success for Experiential Marketing:

2. Know your audience. (January 26)

3. Make it Stick! (January 28)

4. Leverage Technology. (February 2)

5. Be authentic to your brand. (February 11)

6. Select the right spokesperson. (February 16)

7. Pick the right location. (February 18)

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Synergy Events is an independent, experiential marketing agency that works as a silent "behind the scenes" partner for top brands, PR agencies and sports leagues.  For more than 17 years, Synergy has connected brands to consumers via mobile marketing tours, PR stunts, product launches and sponsorship activation programs. If you are planning such an event or may have the need in near future, contact Stan Phelps via sphelps@synergyevents.com.