Experiential Marketing & Customer Engagement

In yesterday's post I discussed the most simple definition of Experience Marketing. The underlying necessity for knowing your customer and using that knowledge to create an experience that will be worthy to them and ultimately provide you with the engagement you are seeking for your brand or product.

Here are some examples of great experiential pieces. They were successful because at their core they spoke to customers on a behavioral level, and the experience was deeply rooted in what the brand and product had to offer.


The Mercedes Benz Tweet Fleet
Mercedes Benz wanted to promote their park assist feature in their cars. The app helps you find parking spaces in your area, and navigates you to the spot. Knowing people's frustration with finding a parking spot in an urban environment, especially around the holiday's was the main impetus for this great campaign. Mecedes Benz created the Tweet Fleet, and their experiential campaign was born. The company had cars driving around Stuttgart, Germany tweeting empty spaces with geo-tags so that followers were alerted to the space and it's location via the navigation system.

Not only was Mercedes Benz one of the most popular brands through out all platforms of Social Media in Germany for the duration of the campaign, it was in the Top 3 of talked about brands. A win-win for customers, who considered the Tweet Fleet Park Assist campaign a game, but for the brand who received accolades, and a lot of unsolicited press. Great buzz always works!

Also check out my Four Fun Interactive Campaigns post from last week. The T-Mobile Live Angry Birds promotion was a clear success and a personal favorite. T-Mobile, wanting to promote themselves in Barcelona, created a live Angry Birds game in a public space. It's not a far stretch to associate T-Mobile with virtual and gaming fun. They capitalized on the incredibly fun and popular game, and customers who engaged had fun. Fun they will associate not only with the game, but with T-Mobile. Check out the video and see the looks on everyone's faces. There is a community feel that just made this campaign perfect!

Have your own example of a great Experiential piece? Share it with me and let's talk about it!

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Check out the Experiential Marketing Forum for more on Experience Marketing.

[Cover image courtesy of sylvainpaillard.com]

Four Fun Interactive Campaigns

A little fun to help get you through this blistery Wednesday! After yesterday's post about FLAWSOME behavior, I thought today we would look at some genuinely awesome and out of the box customer engagement behavior.

T-Mobile Angry Birds
A promotion by T-Mobile in Barcelona 2011. T-Mobile actually built an Angry Birds set. People place their smart phones in the main hub, and play the game. The game is projected on the big screen on the left and the game is played real time. Not only do people have fun, it builds a nice community feel all associated with Angry Birds AND T-Mobile. Check out the video....it's genius!

Kauko Cafe
A cafe in Helsinki was built as part of World Design Helsinki 2012. You can remotely control the furniture, music, lights and even the height of the chairs people sit on via an app or the Kauko Cafe website. The aim of the project was to get people thinking about how bad design can impact your life...and this video shows that it really does!

The Friskies Playhouse
What cat wouldn't want a playground! Friskies Playhouse is a playhouse for rescued cats. The playhouse is created by facebook fans and streamed online live via the page. Fans are able to remotely control the toys and play with the cats. I love that you never lose the idea that this is presented by Friskies, and it's a great way to engage with their cat loving customers.

KLM Surprise!

I tweeted about this last week. KLM has done some great customer engagement programs recently and this one doesn't fall short either. KLM Passengers who Tweeted or used other social media methods to announce their KLM trip were targeted - and with a brainstorm on the best individual gift to give them - are met at the gate with their personal gift from duty free. So great to be met at the gate before a long flight with something personal. I guarantee people will appreciate it!

[Simply Zesty.  Image from http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/ ]

Viral Friday!

Happy Viral Friday everyone! Click here for the top 5 viral videos on the web this week. The list includes: Angry Birds, Diablo III, Puss in Boots with Lady Gaga, HD Hero 2, and Duck Sauce.
For more fun, check out our Funniest Vids on the web!

 Have fun this weekend and see you all back here on Monday!