EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
CINCINNATI EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
Brand activations and experiential marketing are making a huge splash in Cincinnati and around the globe, and rightfully so. Cincinnati, as a growing and centrally located city smack dab in middle America, brands are rediscovering our city's potential.
And that’s where our passion lies – creating experiences that bring the community together and give brands the platform to create relationships.
We’re also passionate about blurring lines in experiential marketing in Ohio and throughout the country.
Experiential marketing is more than pre-planned activations with big brands, Instagram influencers and action-packed Runs of Shows.
We love that. But, we also love creating some creative crossover. Fusing together arts and athletics. Blending photography and community activations (hello Photodash!) Making a photoshoot into a multimedia, cross-platform tool to connect.
As experiential marketing continues to evolve, you’ll see Rooted Creative charging ahead and carving paths. If your brand is on a similar trial, we should be friends.
That’s where our passion lies – creating experiences that bring the community together and give brands the platform to create relationships.
The Power of Experiential Marketing
Here at Rooted, we love experiential marketing! As experiential marketers ourselves, we believe it can be one of the most unique forms of engagement marketing. Honestly, it’s so much more than just “traditional marketing” or dealing with typical marketing strategy.
So what’s so great about experiential marketing?
Experiential marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on creating experiences for customers and potential customers. These experiences can be in the form of event marketing, product demonstrations, or any other type of interactive experience. The goal of a experiential marketing campaign is to create a positive association with the brand or company so that the customer will be more likely to purchase the product or service.
Examples of Experiential Marketing
Where do we start? Experiential campaigns come in many different forms. Here's just a few:
in-person events
participation marketing
virtual experiences
pop up locations
trade shows
brand experience
augmented reality
live events
experiential events
Why Experiential Marketing Matters
There are a number of reasons why an experiential marketing strategy or experiential campaign matters for a brand or company.
Create a Personal Connection
First, experiential marketing allows you to connect with your target audience in a more personal way. This type of marketing allows you to create an emotional connection with your customers that goes beyond the products or services that you sell.
Build Brand Loyalty
Another reason why experiential marketing matters is that it can help you create brand loyalty among your customer base and raise brand awareness. Customers with positive experiences with your brand are more likely to continue doing business with you and recommend your products or services to others. It helps to build emotional connections and personal connections while gaining future customers. Additionally, these customers are also more likely to become advocates for your brand, helping to promote it through word-of-mouth marketing.
Stand out from Competitors
Experiential marketing can be an effective way to differentiate your brand from competitors. In today’s crowded marketplace, it is more important than ever to find ways to stand out from the competition. By offering unique and memorable experiences, you can make your brand more visible and attractive to potential customers.
Finally, experiential marketing can help you build customer relationships that last. These relationships are based on trust and mutual respect, and they can be a key driver of long-term customer loyalty.
Diving Deep into the World of Experiential Marketing and Brand Activation
In the vibrant realm of marketing, where brands constantly vie for consumer attention, two terms have emerged as game-changers: Experiential Marketing and Brand Activation. But what do they entail, and why are they pivotal for modern brands?
1. What Services Do Experiential Marketing Agencies Offer?
Experiential marketing agencies specialize in creating immersive brand experiences that resonate deeply with consumers. Rather than just telling consumers about a brand, they let them "experience" the brand firsthand. Here are some core services they offer:
Event Marketing: Crafting memorable events that allow consumers to interact with a brand, be it product launches, pop-up shops, or interactive installations.
Brand Activations: Initiating consumer engagement by bringing a brand to life, often through interactive experiences that reinforce brand values and messaging.
Pop-Up Experiences: Temporary, often unexpected brand encounters in public spaces, allowing for direct consumer-brand interactions.
Virtual Experiences: Leveraging technology to create immersive digital brand experiences, especially relevant in today's digital-first world.
Trade Shows & Exhibitions: Showcasing brands in industry-specific events, allowing for B2B and B2C interactions.
Augmented Reality & Immersive Tech: Using cutting-edge technology to create interactive brand experiences that blur the lines between the physical and digital realms.
2. What is a Brand Activation Agency?
A Brand Activation Agency focuses on initiating consumer engagement through memorable experiences. It's about "activating" the brand in the minds of consumers. While traditional marketing might tell a consumer why a brand is great, brand activation lets them see, feel, and understand it for themselves.
These agencies specialize in:
Product Launches: Introducing new products in ways that captivate audiences and create buzz.
Sampling Campaigns: Letting consumers try products firsthand, often in innovative and engaging ways.
Interactive Installations: Creating physical setups where consumers can interact with a brand, often leveraging technology.
Pop-Up Events: Temporary brand experiences that surprise and delight consumers, often in high footfall areas.
The goal? To create a lasting impression, foster brand loyalty, and drive consumer action.
3. Brand Activation and Experiential Marketing: Two Sides of the Same Coin
While the terms might seem distinct, brand activation and experiential marketing often overlap and complement each other. Both focus on creating memorable brand experiences, but their approach and end goals can differ.
Brand Activation is about sparking consumer engagement. It's the catalyst that propels a brand into the consumer's consciousness. Whether it's a product sampling in a busy mall, an interactive billboard, or a pop-up store, the goal is to "activate" the brand in the minds of consumers, driving immediate action.
Experiential Marketing, on the other hand, is broader. It encompasses any marketing strategy that allows consumers to experience the brand. This could be a brand activation event, but it could also be a virtual reality experience, a branded music festival, or an interactive website. The aim here is to create a deeper emotional connection between the brand and the consumer, fostering long-term loyalty.
So, why are these strategies gaining traction?
Tangible Interactions: In a digital age, physical, tangible brand interactions stand out. They offer a break from the screen and create real-world connections.
Emotional Connections: Experiencing a brand firsthand can lead to stronger emotional ties. It's the difference between hearing about a concert and attending one.
Word-of-Mouth: Memorable experiences get talked about. Whether it's face-to-face or on social media, consumers share standout brand interactions, amplifying reach.
Data Collection: These events offer a goldmine of data. Brands can gain insights into consumer preferences, behaviors, and feedback in real-time.
Competitive Edge: In a saturated market, experiential marketing and brand activation can set a brand apart, making it memorable and distinctive.
In conclusion, as the marketing landscape evolves, strategies that prioritize consumer experience are coming to the fore. Experiential marketing agencies and brand activation agencies offer brands the tools, expertise, and creativity to craft campaigns that resonate, captivate, and convert. In a world where consumers are inundated with ads, genuine, memorable brand experiences can make all the difference.
Here are some of the trends that large brands are seeing with investing in experiential marketing:
- 48% of brands will expect an ROI from a live event that is in the 3:1 to 5:1 range.
- 83% of brands believe that brand marketing will increase their sales.
- 74% of event attendees believe that they will engage with a brand in the future because they received a positive experience at a live event.
- Almost 2/3 of customers have a better perception of a brand because they engaged with it at a live event.
So, those are some of the reasons that you should consider using an experiential marketing agency to help with your brand awareness and sales goals. Working with a major brand like Rooted will help you achieve some of those goals.
How Many Businesses Worldwide Are Using Experiential Marketing?
LinkedIn once did a survey of businesses throughout the world about how much they used experiential marketing. Most do and if you are not using experiential marketing, you could get left behind. The survey was astounding. In addition to the event itself, businesses are using social media, apps, technology, and other resources to connect people in new and exciting ways. Here is what the stats say about businesses that are using experiential marketing to grow their customer base and build customer relationships:
- 85% of businesses in the last year had a virtual event.
- The vast majority of businesses (nearly 95%) believe that live in-person or virtual events help them achieve their business goals.
- During the pandemic, virtual events helped 80% of marketers better reach their audience.
B2B companies are also investing a large number of resources into virtual events. In the future, they are going to focus more on virtual events to help drive leads. In some ways, a live or virtual event is more useful than a website lead through a digital marketing campaign because it allows businesses to create a real relationship with a customer and it can help bypass the traditional "cold call" or "inbound lead" process.
During the pandemic, businesses didn't slow down their digital marketing efforts. They found new ways to connect with people either with COVID-19 precautions or virtual events. Businesses learned to connect better with their new customers by making better use of technology.
What Kinds of Companies Utilize Experiential Marketing With Rooted?
There are huge brand names that utilize Rooted Creative Agency for their experiential marketing endeavors. These include big brands like Red Bull, Adidas, and Jurgens. Are you a fitness or sports company? Rooted can help you connect with your customers by facilitating great live in-person events. Our creative arm can also make your event stand out. We can do videos, drone footage, and other efforts to help connect people with your brand.
But the most important assets in an experiential marketing effort are twofold: the brand and the people that the brand is trying to reach. Rooted will help you connect with your customers better than ever before.
Different Types of Experiential Marketing That Rooted Can Help You With
Brand Activations
Are you about to launch a new product or service? This is a type of showcase that will promote your new product or service. Typically, creative agencies use these to showcase the product or service. But Rooted takes it a step further. We make the brand activation be about the relationship you have with your prospective customers.
Event Marketing
This is a tried and true method for connecting with your customers. Like a brand activation, it can help connect your brand with people. Event marketing can help your customers remember your brand because of a memorable experience they have and they connect the two.
Immersive Experiences
An immersion experience is any type of experience that is designed to let your customers experience your product or services firsthand. You should work with Rooted if you would like to let customers learn about your products or services in a more meaningful way.
We can help you create an experience that is memorable, fun, and useful for your customers. We will help you connect with your customers in a way that allows you to achieve your business goals.
Where the Experiential Marketing Experience Starts With Rooted
At Rooted, the experience starts with your brand's desires. Maybe you are looking for something that no one has ever done before. It could be a pop-up experience, a mobile tour, a PR stunt, or something that none of your competitors have ever done. Rooted will take your event to the next level. Your experiential marketing effort might be something so unique, that there might not even be a single term that describes exactly what it is.
At Rooted, your experience will start with your creative director. You'll get a whole creative team to fulfill every possible need for your event. You'll need someone to connect with stakeholders in the community. Maybe you'll need some new product photos for your product activation. We even have drones ready to fly over to have a birds eye view on what exactly is happening.
The Rooted Experiential Marketing Experience
Traditionally, experiential marketing was pretty straightforward. You had an event, you promoted your product or service. Rooted Creative agency has brought things like immersion and connection to the experiential marketing realm. Some of the brands that we worked with recently include Red Bull, Jurgens, Race Street Athletics, and more. At each of these events, we invited people to participate and immerse themselves in the brand.
Experiential marketing is a fast and effective way to tell your brand’s story to new and existing customers. Experiential marketing helps engage all the senses and helps create brand loyalty, in addition to brand awareness. With traditional marketing, customers engage with your products or services indirectly. Rooted’s approach to experiential marketing brings its creative agency skill sets, like videography and photography, to an in-person event that helps capture the story of your brand.
Experiential marketing doesn’t just cover a face-to-face event, but also the before and after the event. Experiential marketing focuses on person-to-photo, person-to-video, and captures all the essences of the before, during, and after the event.
When you get started with Rooted Creative’s experiential marketing team, you will have a team that will help you:
Come up with innovative campaigns that help your brand interact with the public and build brand loyalty.
Understand what type of experiential campaigns will help you connect with your ideal customers.
Build market research that will help you identify goals and targets.
Track, analyze, and understand the success of your experiential campaign’s impact on your brand’s connection with customers.
Experiential marketing helps customers build a connection with a brand. Not only will you be able to connect with customers better than ever before, but you will also collect data about people who participate with the event. There is also a huge connection between people at an event, their smartphones, and their choice of social media channels. Not only do people connect with your brand at a campaign event, but you will also have people telling their story of your brand with their followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
Great experiential marketing helps showcase what a brand stands for. A successful experiential marketing event will create attachment, feelings, and association for a particular brand. According to the Event Marketing Institute, around 75% of customers will have positive feelings about a brand after an event. Also, about 98% of attendees to a brand activation will feel better about a purchase decision that they might make in the future with that brand.
Rooted Creative has done tons of experiential marketing campaigns, like brand activations. Our experiential marketing events bring major stakeholders together, ranging from influencers, to community leaders, to trendsetters. A successful experiential marketing campaign will spread a brand’s message long after the event has passed. Our origins as a photography and video creative agency lend themselves nicely to brand activations. As Cincinnati’s top experiential marketing agency, we will let your brand resonate throughout the community, letting people at the event help tell your brand’s story.
Brand Activations
Brand activations are at the core of what Rooted Creative Agency does. A brand activation is a way of bringing people together to tell the story of a brand, or its new product or services. There are no limits on what a brand activation can include. For example, you could have something unique planned. Rooted will step in and help you bridge the gap between your brand and customers through its creative storytelling. Our creative arsenal for making a brand activation succeed includes photography, video, branding, and design. We also play a key role in bringing people together. We’ll help you work with your stakeholders, your customers, and leaders in the community to make sure that your brand activation is 100% successful. Rooted has done tons of brand activations over the years. We have worked with big brands like Red Bull, Jurgens, Adidas, and more. Our brand activations will make sure that your brand is one of the 5% that achieve success through your brand activation endeavors.
Product Launches
Product launches are very similar to brand activations. They focus on a launch of a new product or service, but have all levels of grandeur to make sure that your launch shines. If you are planning an in-person event for a product launch, Rooted helps you from conception to after the event has ended. For example, we can provide video to help you showcase your product before the launch happens. During your product launch, our creative team will help you connect your product or service with new customers by getting the story out there and making sure that your product shines.
Mega Events
These are the largest types of in-person events that you can have for your brand. Maybe you are focusing on bringing in speakers or VIPs. Maybe you will have vendor booths, give away free samples, or have kiosks to help connect people. Rooted can help bring your mega event to life and make sure that all of your creative storytelling assets are in place.
Guerrilla Campaigns
This is where experiential marketing has its roots. This is the type of event where your brand shows up at a concert, a festival, a sporting event, or other mega event. This is pre-planned with a partner and typically entails giving away samples, flyers, and other freebies to get your people to connect with your brand.
Exclusive Experiences
These tend to be smaller scale, but no doubt will help your brand resonate with new customers. This is where you invite your potential customers to a VIP event. Maybe your customers receive an exclusive shopping experience or get to participate in cocktails in a VIP only lounge. This type of event will help you reach targeted customers and will leverage their experience at the event to connect with customers further down the road.
Rooted Creative Agency’s experiential marketing is one of the things that we do best. You will notice several benefits of working with a creative agency to plan your experiential marketing event. You will get a new trove of customers on paper, but you will also get the benefit of:
Increasing brand awareness: An experiential marketing event will help you reach more people. For example, you will be able to connect with people that you wouldn’t have connected to through traditional advertising channels.
An enhanced lead list: You will be able to glean a whole lot of information from people based upon their attendance at a live event. A website form will give you a name, email, and phone number, but an event list will give you information about who they are and how they best connect with your brand.
Super strong brand loyalty: When a customer has a good experience with a product or service, they will be a customer for life. However, customers who attend an event showed up because they wanted to be there, and makes for the best of brand loyalty.
Mega buzz: The people who attend your event aren’t your only customers. Your participants will share photos and videos of the event with their friends on social media. Research has shown that this type of activity will increase your referrals by anywhere from 2 to 5 times.
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310 Culvert St #103
Cincinnati, OH
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