Experiential Marketing

Giant Leaps For Brand-Kind In Experiential Marketing

One giant leap for Red Bull.

If we’re talking about epic experiential marketing activations, there really is no contest when a man jumps out of a space capsule at 128,000 feet in the stratosphere, and free falls to Earth, now is there?

As we all know, Felix Baumgartner did this for the Red Bull “Stratos Jump” back in October 2012. Racking up 52 million views worldwide during the live broadcast and increasing U.S. sales of Red Bull by 7% to $1.6 billion, you’d say with quite unwavering certainty that this particular marketing stunt was a success.

Now that nod to greatness is out the way, on to yet another Red Bull win – this time in the form of a rather silly, but still highly successful experiential marketing activation for the brand.

Almost everything Red Bull does is experiential marketing. It is one of the world’s great leader brands in creating lifestyles and immersive experiences for its loving fanbase.

Giant Leaps For Brand-Kind In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

One giant leap for Red Bull

One such brilliant experiential marketing idea of theirs is Red Bull Flugtag (German for “flight day”). Competitors attempt to fly home-made, human-powered flying machines with usually hilarious consequences. The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 feet high into the sea or a lake. It’s basically a giant winged laugh rather than a serious sporting event (in opposition to the Red Bull Formula 1 team for instance), and most competitors enter for the entertainment value, their flying machines rarely flying at all! This experiential marketing event started in Vienna (home of Red Bull) has been toured globally, flapping its haphazard wings in Sydney, Auckland, Tel Aviv, Kuwait to name a few. The result? More glowing global love for this never-endingly creative brand.

Giant Leaps For Brand-Kind In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

Red Bull Flugtag (German for “flight day”).

Bringing In The D’Oh

One relatively simple but brilliantly immersive experiential marketing campaign came in 2007, when 20th Century Fox hyped the release of “The Simpsons Movie”. 

Giant Leaps For Brand-Kind In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

The studio partnered with the 7-Eleven chain of stores to transform a dozen stores into their “Simpsons” counterpart.

They decided to bring the cartoon world alive by creating Kwik-E-Mart convenience stores in the real world. In a clever marketing alliance (as opposed to rivalling them), the studio partnered with the 7-Eleven chain of stores to transform a dozen stores into their “Simpsons” counterpart. The shelves even had trademark favourite treats like pink sprinkled doughnuts, Buzz cola and Krusty-Os cereal.

Sliding Down To Success

Fanta tapped into every kid (and adult’s) dream, by installing a giant slippery dip in place of the down escalator at the Dizzengof Centre in Tel Aviv. Although I have doubts such a fun experiential marketing activation would make it through the acres of OH&S red tape in Australia, but this activation was a massive success and made shopping for chicken soup and matzoh a hell of a lot more exciting for the Israeli shoppers that particular month.

Giant Leaps For Brand-Kind In Experiential Marketing, ENGAGE

Fanta tapped into every kid (and adult’s) dream, by installing a giant slippery dip in place of the down escalator at the Dizzengof Centre in Tel Aviv.

How Brexit Has Broken European-wide Marketing Activations

(in my humble opinion at any rate)

I’m not going to use this blog as a carte blanche* opportunity to lament my Motherland’s short sighted, idiotic and highly embarrassing vote to leave the EU. Perish the thought… However, what I will say on the subject, in relation to the whole realm of Experiential Marketing, is that such inspirational and easily activated campaigns as the one below,  unveiled at Berlin’s central train station, back in November 2008, by BBC World News will not be simple, let alone possible, in the future due to our exiting the EU. Applause for the small minded, racist, xenophobic bigots of the UK who managed to muck up the future for our children and our children’s children – not to mention the marketing world and its free flowing ideas marketplace.

Rant over. BBC World News created this campaign to launch its ad campaign that featured the text “you can’t restrain a powerful question” and “you can’t suppress a powerful question”.

The 9 foot statue of a microphone breaking through the floor of Berlin’s central train station carried the line, “You can’t bury a powerful question.”

The idea of this activation was to reveal how BBC journalists go to great lengths to ask the questions its audience expect to be answered.

Bravo, merci, danke and dank je.

* French phrase courtesy of France, who are still in the EU, unlike my Motherland, UK