What is experiential marketing and communications?

There are a lot of companies - including an increasing number of ad agencies - that are using the term with varying degrees of understanding, and producing events, or 'experiences' based on a number of assumptions.

Too often these assumptions belie a strategic misunderstanding, and lead to experiences that definitely happen, but don't always happen to work.

In its simplest form, it is creating meaningful experiences that enhance or build relationships with a brand, or organisation. It is providing a mechanism for consumers, staff, suppliers or prospects to interact with the brand. All this is either an alternative, or supplementary, to "passive" marketing or communication where there is only a one-way flow of information - such as traditional ATL media.

Our view of experiential communications is that too much emphasis is still being placed on "passive" communications, from both a brand and corporate point of view. With the increasing clutter in traditional media, coupled with the expense of using selective specialist media, marketers have been forced into exploring new channels. On the other side, consumers and audiences are demanding more meaningful relationships with the brands that they choose and, as a result, look to experience the brands rather than merely receive information about them.

When done correctly, experiential marketing has a very real impact on real people in both the corporate world and among a targeted market of consumers.

Globally, there are numerous case histories expounding the virtues of experiential. In some cases, major brands have been launched and sustained by only using experiential channels, with no ATL at all.

And it's not new here, by the way, it has just got a new name. For years, brands and organisations have been using it - industrial theatre, in-store sampling, road shows, sponsorship programmes, exhibitions, induction training, conferencing etc.

So what is the medium of experiential marketing?

In a very real sense it is a multi-medium. Not in the already hackneyed sense of audio and visual, but in the collective senses of the audience - the touch, taste, sights, sounds and personal experience of a message as translated through the environment in which that message, or that brand, or that call-to-action is sited.

Mood and context are not only a part of the experience of a message; they are also the medium by which that message is positively or negatively influenced.

So what makes it effective?

Firstly, the fact it usually involves touching a number of the senses, not just audio or visual, and this tends to develop an emotion - hopefully positive. We call it sensory communications. Creating an experience, preferably a series of experiences or interventions, where the audience or recipient gets really involved.

Secondly, the experience or intervention very often takes place in an environment where the consumer is happy to be engaged, or where he or she is consuming the product (bar, restaurant, shopping mall). As a result, the message or experience becomes that much more meaningful.

At its heart then, experiential marketing is a way of forging a new and positive set of personal and relevant emotional connections to a brand or a message within a carefully designed communication environment. It's that simple, and that complex.