As brands continue to spend top dollar on advertising, it’s crucial to be creative in your marketing and public relations strategies to stand out from the pack. Through brand activation, brands can build more awareness through novel experiences, create buzz and stimulate consumer interest that leads to sales.
What are Brand Activations?
Brand activations are a specific type of event or experience created by a company and characterized by their interactivity. They provide the opportunity for brands to directly engage consumers, face-to-face, product in hand. This method often takes many different forms:
- Experiential events, like HBO’s Westworld Theme Park
- Sampling and in-store campaigns like Ray Ban’s Never Hide Campaign
- Aligning the brand with something fun like Lipton’s Commuter Slip n’ Slide
Creating Memories that Last
Building and maintaining brand awareness is a crucial, primary goal in a marketing campaign. With brand activations, the increase in consumer touch points and engaging experience greatly improve awareness and recall. For example, in an in-store or sampling activation giving out promotional merchandise, Expandabrand noted that two-thirds of people are able to remember the brand up to a year later.
Not only do activations provide more engaging touch points with customers, but their interactive nature also makes it easier to remember your brand. Moreover, the more favorable their experience, the more likely they are to have a positive association with the brand and its products or services.
Stronger Connection with Consumers
Activations provide more opportunities for consumers to interact with your product or service which can stimulate a stronger emotional connection to the brand. This gets people talking about your brand and sharing the experience through social media, which can rack up an enormous amount of organic impressions. This growth in consumer interest can directly influence purchasing decisions in your favor.
Being face-to-face with your target consumer also gives you the opportunity to better understand them. What do they think about your product or service? Is it easy to use? Do they like the way it looks? This type of two-way communication builds a personal connection with your consumer and provides a better understanding of how your brand is meeting their needs.
When executed properly, brand activations are an incredibly useful tool to connect with consumers. But proper execution is no easy feat. Let our expertise help your brand be heard in the ever-evolving world of marketing. Contact or stay social with us! We’re just one call, like, follow, retweet and DM away.