Experiential Marketing

How To Brew Up A Sporty Storm In Experiential Marketing

As we have seen in the last blog, the clever brands know that through the mass explosion of social media, messages are drowned. The amount of messaging on our screens is astounding – massive- overload – meaning it’s hard to truly impact and connect with potential consumers properly through digital. Your message has to SHOUT LOUDER than the hundreds of other messages flashing up on consumers’ screens.

Brands need to connect for real now. This is why Experiential Marketing is essential to underpin your social media campaign – creating experiences for people who aren’t even there. Making them feel part of the landscape – well loved – not left out – a cog in the wheel of your brand’s exciting journey.

Not all brands have the infinite resources (let alone the stellar creative marketing teams) to stage the big, bold, beautiful events that certain brand leaders can. Which is why this age of social media is perfect as a new avenue for experiential marketing to shine. Social media also amplifies the power of these techniques to last far longer than a single day. Experiential marketing + well planned social media activity = a jumping-off point to building your brand’s image.

As we all know, experiential marketing and social media are fuelled by technology, but also by ideas from people like us. Real people. The public. The audience. Knowing that this method of marketing is so powerful when combined with social media, it’s important for brands to know the Stories that people want to share, and the things that make them tick.

I’ve singled out a brand which, in my view, has this connection with its audience on so many levels down pat – perfected to perfection. And beyond. Heineken.

How To Brew Up A Sporty Storm In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

Perfected to perfection. And beyond. Heineken.

Traditionally, a beer brand – yes, but now synonymous with sport (especially football – in the traditional English sense of the word) and the magical, tantalising slogan Open Your World, Heineken also sponsors numerous high profile sport and music events around the world, including European Rugby Champions Cup and since 2005 Europe’s most prestigious football competition – UEFA Champions League.

In the past few years, Heineken has put Big Euros into its experiential marketing campaigns. This way, it has forged an unbreakable bond with its fans on a brand new and much more sophisticated level – The Experience. We all know it’s The Experience that people want, see, love, share and use to define themselves across social media channels.

The brand’s carefully crafted social media campaigns such as #ShareTheSofa (below) deliver tremendous online “talkability”, boosting brand awareness and positioning Heineken exactly where it wants to be – at the forefront of every beer drinker/football lover/person’s mind.

How To Brew Up A Sporty Storm In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

The brand’s carefully crafted social media campaigns such as #ShareTheSofa (below) deliver tremendous online “talkability”.

But, my ultimate two favourite campaigns from Heineken, which I just have to share, and which make me laugh, cry, go all silly, get excited and just clean shake my head with their pinpointed perfection on The Human Cause are The Cliché and The Dilemma.

What’s so clever about most of Heineken’s campaigns, but these two in particular, is that although they are intrinsically about beer and football, they’re not about that at all. They’re about commitment and passion – how we live our lives, how we interact with our loved ones and friends and the various situations where these relationships are challenged and are set head to head against each other. And how we react. They take real life situations and emotional wrangles we all have and lay them out for all to see and FEEL.

The first one – The Cliché is about passionate football fans – and the realities of that passion. It outlines the passion at a given moment in time versus long-term commitment. This negotiation drives the comedy, not to mention the unease we feel as viewers. The other ad – The Dilemma is just that: a dilemma between friendship and fanship.

Heineken’s ability to use content marketing, experiential marketing and viral advertising with social media to consistently push its brand values to new users makes it a winner.

The brand leverages its connections with sport, adds a well observed pinch of storytelling and capitalises on the brand’s heritage to create experiential marketing and content marketing campaigns that blow the audience away with their Bullseye resonance.

I’ll drink to that.