ARCHIVE - The Changing Face of Face-to-Face Marketing

August 28, 2008 In Archives By Advent

Fly Fishing Advice for Marketers

WHY YOU SHOULD MARKET THROUGH THE TOUGH TIMES

Wanaka, NZ

One rea­son Paul caught more fish than any­one else was that he had his flies in the water more than any­one else. “Brother,” he would say, “there are no fly­ing fish in Mon­tana. Out here, you can′t catch fish with your flies in the air.”

–Nor­man Maclean, A River Runs Through It

I am loath to add more.  Dear old 14^th cen­tury logi­cian, William Ock­ham might argue that this quote is suf­fi­cient to explain why com­pa­nies should mar­ket through tough times cit­ing his famous razor which dic­tates that the sim­plest expla­na­tion is best.  But cav­a­lier as ever, I′ll flirt with dan­ger and sally forth into the fray of expli­ca­tion at the per­ilous risk of vio­lat­ing the law of par­si­mony with zeal­ous hopes of impart­ing clar­ity and depth of under­stand­ing unat­tain­able by brevity.  Yet fear not for I will sac­ri­fice nei­ther suc­cinct­ness nor lucid­ity upon an alter of super­flu­ous fluff.

Har­vard Busi­ness School pro­fes­sor, John Quelch, advises com­pa­nies how to mar­ket through the tough times.  He urges com­pa­nies to main­tain mar­ket­ing spend­ing.  “This is not the time to cut adver­tis­ing.” While other brands are slash­ing bud­gets and cir­cling the wag­ons against reces­sion, brands that increase mar­ket­ing dur­ing a reces­sion can increase their mar­ket share and their return on invest­ment for a lower cost than dur­ing good times.  Now is when you can nego­ti­ate and lock in favor­able rates with com­pa­nies eager for your busi­ness.  The fears of timid con­sumers are assuaged by the reas­sur­ing vis­i­ble pres­ence of strong brands.  When that pres­ence takes the form of direct mar­ket­ing the sales impact is immediate.

It is well doc­u­mented that face-to-face mar­ket­ing is the most mem­o­rable form of mar­ket­ing.  Though the cost per touch is high, it is not as high as you might think.  A study released by the Event Mar­ket­ing Insti­tute reports that of con­sumers who reported a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence, 98% will rec­om­mend you and over half will tell at least 4 peo­ple.  Ide­ally those peo­ple would then tell oth­ers and quickly one expo­sure has turned into many.   Word-of-mouth is the most trusted source of infor­ma­tion for con­sumers.  The value of expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing makes it a great buy dur­ing slow times.

The myr­iad of vari­ables that affect trout behav­ior is daunt­ing.  Loca­tion, depth, water color, struc­ture, time of day, amount of sun­light, sea­son, hatch, fish­ing pres­sure, pre­sen­ta­tion, mend­ing, fly choice, leader length, taper, and dumb luck all play a major part.  Catch­ing con­sumers is no dif­fer­ent.  There are a mil­lion vari­ables and options.  If your head is swim­ming, one thing remains clear: if what you are doing is not work­ing, then try some­thing else.  I′ve heard insan­ity defined as “doing the same thing over and over and expect­ing dif­fer­ent results.”  Be creative.

In your office, you will not increase sales by sit­ting next to the phone.  Answer­ing the phones faster is not a viable strategy.  Remember, you′ll only catch fish if you fly is in the water and your sales will only increase if you focus on marketing.

Related

Mar­ket­ing Your Way Through a Reces­sion — John Quelch

Grow your busi­ness in spite of the slow­ing econ­omy — Rhonda Abrams

Mar­ket­ing in a Slow Econ­omy — Bill Taylor

August 27, 2008 In Archives By Advent

What path do your customers walk?

What kind of first impres­sion does your space make when a cus­tomer vis­its your orga­ni­za­tion for the first time? Every sec­ond is valu­able in mak­ing an impact — from the time they arrive to when they walk out your door. Think about the first time you walked into Starbuck’s… you smelled the cof­fee aroma, you heard the cheer­ful barista call­ing out cus­tom orders, you saw patrons sip­ping their bev­er­age while read­ing the morn­ing news or meet­ing with friends; and of course there was the Starbuck’s color scheme, logo, décor, retail offer­ings and fur­nish­ings… that is the Starbuck’s expe­ri­ence. It is the unique Starbuck’s “brand”.

What mes­sage does your organization’s space com­mu­ni­cate? Do your cus­tomers know who you are and what you do by sim­ply walk­ing into your space?

What about the actual path your client walks from the front door of your office to your con­fer­ence room? This is a prime oppor­tu­nity to show off your organization’s accom­plish­ments, your val­ues, your peo­ple and their com­mit­ment to excel­lence. Why not set a pos­i­tive tone for the meet­ing before it even begins?

At Advent, we uti­lize “brand spaces” treat­ments to work with clients to align a phys­i­cal space with the mes­sage they want to com­mu­ni­cate inter­nally and exter­nally. Every treat­ment is as cus­tom and unique as the mes­sage it con­veys.

Mars Pet­care, head­quar­tered in Cool Springs, TN, wants their vis­i­tors to know that pets are their pri­or­ity; that is their mes­sage. Vis­i­tors are greeted by the most impor­tant cus­tomers of all – pets!

Lip­scomb Uni­ver­sity wants to com­mu­ni­cate how impor­tant the stu­dents are to the Uni­ver­sity. In this walk path in the admis­sions build­ing, pho­tos of stu­dents line the walls dis­play­ing var­i­ous activ­i­ties and areas of engage­ment. The framed pieces have change­able graph­ics for easy updating.

Before even enter­ing the front door of the Health­ways head­quar­ters, the orga­ni­za­tion demon­strates its his­tory of accom­plish­ments with step­ping stones on the path to the front door. Each is a mile­stone of suc­cess inlaid in the con­crete – what a great way to intro­duce Health­ways to a new visitor!

Brand­ing your space sup­ports three key mar­ket­ing objec­tives – dif­fer­en­ti­aion, con­sis­tency and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This oppor­tu­nity to make a great first and last­ing impres­sion can dif­fer­en­ti­ate you from your com­peti­tor and cre­ate brand aware­ness not only to vis­i­tors but also inter­nally to staff and employees.

How could an employee not remem­ber Mars Petcare’s val­ues when they are greeted with them each time they step off the ele­va­tor to enter the office? How about the happy pet wel­com­ing them to work each morn­ing? (This pet actu­ally belongs to a Mars Pet­care employee.)

What is your organization’s story? What do you want vis­i­tors and clients to know about you? What are your company’s accom­plish­ments? Does your space com­mu­ni­cate why and how you are dif­fer­ent from your com­peti­tors? Let your space speak. It could com­mu­ni­cate the unique mes­sage that the great­est sales pitch can’t express!

August 21, 2008 In By Advent

Green Event Inspiration: Jack Johnson on Tour

Major events are noto­ri­ously eco–unfriendly affairs.  Here is some inspi­ra­tion from Jack John­son to green up your events.

Singer-songwriter, Jack John­son, was reared with a surf­board under his arm and sand between his toes on the par­a­disi­a­cal North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.  While most of us are lucky just to have a back­yard, his back­yard was the world′s most famous wave, Ban­zai Pipeline.  When the waves turned into enor­mous crash­ing mon­strosi­ties they would rat­tle his bed­room win­dows at night while he dreamed of becom­ing a pro­fes­sional surfer.  No doubt, a child­hood spent in inti­mate com­mu­nion with nature′s own play­ground has inspired his zeal for pro­tect­ing the environment.

When not wear­ing board shorts he is wear­ing a t-shirt and jeans and rarely incar­cer­ates his feet within shoes′ restric­tive con­fines.  His man­ner­isms are relaxed.  And his humil­ity is accen­tu­ated by his unas­sum­ing nature and com­pli­mented by his laid-back demeanor.  But don′t let his chilled-out surfer dude per­sona fool you.  He is moti­vated.  The pro surf­ing gig didn′t work out and now, at age 33, he is a multi-platinum sell­ing mega-star who has sold mil­lions of albums.  He has turned his bound­less pas­sion and knack for suc­cess towards reduc­ing his impact on the envi­ron­ment.  And that′s a daunt­ing mis­sion for a singer on tour.  “We started doing shows in 1998, first in clubs, then in the­aters, then in amphithe­aters.  And one day, you look around, and you real­ize there are trucks and buses and the tour has a pretty large car­bon foot­print” (Fast Company).

Music indus­try events are noto­ri­ously high impact affairs.  Huge, grum­bling trucks and tour buses guz­zle gas and spew pol­lu­tants as they roar from city to city. Masses of fans drive from miles away to stand in long lines for food and drinks that are also shipped in from far away, pro­duced waste­fully, and wrapped in plas­tic con­tain­ers, great heap­ing moun­tains of which will be around for their great-grandchildren′s great-grandchildren.  And its not just music indus­try events: busi­ness events, fes­ti­vals, fund rais­ers, ral­lies, and trade shows are all tra­di­tion­ally big wasters.  Jack John­son is try­ing to change that in sev­eral pro­found ways.  Impor­tantly, his efforts help cre­ate and sup­port the emerg­ing green mar­ket which cre­ates more options and oppor­tu­ni­ties for other com­pa­nies.  Here are some of the things he is doing:

Green Band Actions on Tour:

• Pro­vid­ing on-site water sta­tions, waste man­age­ment, and recy­cling services.
• Uti­liz­ing reusable water bot­tles that can be refilled on-site.
• Fuel­ing tour vehi­cles and/or gen­er­a­tors with sus­tain­able biodiesel
• Offer­ing eco-friendly tour merchandise
• Select­ing environmentally-conscious travel and hotel options.
• Procur­ing locally grown and organic foods for back­stage catering
• Off­set­ting all remain­ing CO2 emis­sions from the tour and for each night′s show using a unique CO2 Off­set Strat­egy.
• Encour­ag­ing fans to join in

For the Fans:

• There is a CO2 off­set pur­chase option when you pur­chase your tickets.
• They can Explore videos by local non-profits on the All At Once site and Jack John­son will donate $1 per view to those orga­ni­za­tions through his new char­ity, the John­son Ohana Char­i­ta­ble Foundation.
• All At Once Vol­un­teer Cal­en­dar: to help fans get involved.
• The Vil­lage Green located at the show offers a forum for non profits.
• Usu­ally there′s VIP park­ing for car­pools and hybrid vehicles.
• Dona­tions to the local non-profits at the show and online will be matched by Jack′s new char­ity (up to $2,500 US dollars).

(for the com­plete list visit http://www.jackjohnsonmusic.com/home )

Notably, he is using his fame as a plat­form and his show as a forum to encour­age and edu­cate his fans to be more eco-friendly.  And it cer­tainly doesn′t hurt brand Jack John­son.  He gains respect, cred­i­bil­ity, and free press (like this arti­cle) through his envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble behavior.

Mel­low tones and upbeat beats flow from his gui­tar like the rhythm of rolling waves crash­ing on the North Shore beaches he calls home.  His voice is smooth and invit­ing as glassy face of impos­si­bly blue 6 foot waves that march in orderly lines towards right-hand point breaks.  His envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble actions ben­e­fit the nature he loves and are a great inspi­ra­tion and guide to event orga­niz­ers, providers, mar­keters, and exhibitors who are look­ing to reduce their envi­ron­men­tal impact and make their events green.

RELATED ARTICLES

Swell Guy — Out­side Magazine

Green Grow the Rock­ers — Fast Company

Back­stage with Green Rocker Jack John­son — Focus Earth

Artist Biog­ra­phy — Billboard.com

ADVENT GREEN EVENT ADVICE

Green Dis­play Booth — Teresa Drozak

10 Tips For an Eco-Friendly Trade Show — Bill Taylor

Advent leads from the fore­front of the cut­ting edge mod­ern mar­ket­ing indus­try by fuel­ing events with the power of brand.  Advent is com­mit­ted to social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity.  For more, check out Advent′s GREEN­mark or go to www.adventresults.com.

In By Advent

Green Event Inspiration: Jack Johnson on Tour

Major events are noto­ri­ously eco–unfriendly affairs.  Here is some inspi­ra­tion from Jack John­son to green up your events.

Singer-songwriter, Jack John­son, was reared with a surf­board under his arm and sand between his toes on the par­a­disi­a­cal North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.  While most of us are lucky just to have a back­yard, his back­yard was the world′s most famous wave, Ban­zai Pipeline.  When the waves turned into enor­mous crash­ing mon­strosi­ties they would rat­tle his bed­room win­dows at night while he dreamed of becom­ing a pro­fes­sional surfer.  No doubt, a child­hood spent in inti­mate com­mu­nion with nature′s own play­ground has inspired his zeal for pro­tect­ing the environment.

When not wear­ing board shorts he is wear­ing a t-shirt and jeans and rarely incar­cer­ates his feet within shoes′ restric­tive con­fines.  His man­ner­isms are relaxed.  And his humil­ity is accen­tu­ated by his unas­sum­ing nature and com­pli­mented by his laid-back demeanor.  But don′t let his chilled-out surfer dude per­sona fool you.  He is moti­vated.  The pro surf­ing gig didn′t work out and now, at age 33, he is a multi-platinum sell­ing mega-star who has sold mil­lions of albums.  He has turned his bound­less pas­sion and knack for suc­cess towards reduc­ing his impact on the envi­ron­ment.  And that′s a daunt­ing mis­sion for a singer on tour.  “We started doing shows in 1998, first in clubs, then in the­aters, then in amphithe­aters.  And one day, you look around, and you real­ize there are trucks and buses and the tour has a pretty large car­bon foot­print” (Fast Company).

Music indus­try events are noto­ri­ously high impact affairs.  Huge, grum­bling trucks and tour buses guz­zle gas and spew pol­lu­tants as they roar from city to city. Masses of fans drive from miles away to stand in long lines for food and drinks that are also shipped in from far away, pro­duced waste­fully, and wrapped in plas­tic con­tain­ers, great heap­ing moun­tains of which will be around for their great-grandchildren′s great-grandchildren.  And its not just music indus­try events: busi­ness events, fes­ti­vals, fund rais­ers, ral­lies, and trade shows are all tra­di­tion­ally big wasters.  Jack John­son is try­ing to change that in sev­eral pro­found ways.  Impor­tantly, his efforts help cre­ate and sup­port the emerg­ing green mar­ket which cre­ates more options and oppor­tu­ni­ties for other com­pa­nies.  Here are some of the things he is doing:

Green Band Actions on Tour:

• Pro­vid­ing on-site water sta­tions, waste man­age­ment, and recy­cling services.
• Uti­liz­ing reusable water bot­tles that can be refilled on-site.
• Fuel­ing tour vehi­cles and/or gen­er­a­tors with sus­tain­able biodiesel
• Offer­ing eco-friendly tour merchandise
• Select­ing environmentally-conscious travel and hotel options.
• Procur­ing locally grown and organic foods for back­stage catering
• Off­set­ting all remain­ing CO2 emis­sions from the tour and for each night′s show using a unique CO2 Off­set Strat­egy.
• Encour­ag­ing fans to join in

For the Fans:

• There is a CO2 off­set pur­chase option when you pur­chase your tickets.
• They can Explore videos by local non-profits on the All At Once site and Jack John­son will donate $1 per view to those orga­ni­za­tions through his new char­ity, the John­son Ohana Char­i­ta­ble Foundation.
• All At Once Vol­un­teer Cal­en­dar: to help fans get involved.
• The Vil­lage Green located at the show offers a forum for non profits.
• Usu­ally there′s VIP park­ing for car­pools and hybrid vehicles.
• Dona­tions to the local non-profits at the show and online will be matched by Jack′s new char­ity (up to $2,500 US dollars).

(for the com­plete list visit http://www.jackjohnsonmusic.com/home )

Notably, he is using his fame as a plat­form and his show as a forum to encour­age and edu­cate his fans to be more eco-friendly.  And it cer­tainly doesn′t hurt brand Jack John­son.  He gains respect, cred­i­bil­ity, and free press (like this arti­cle) through his envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble behavior.

Mel­low tones and upbeat beats flow from his gui­tar like the rhythm of rolling waves crash­ing on the North Shore beaches he calls home.  His voice is smooth and invit­ing as glassy face of impos­si­bly blue 6 foot waves that march in orderly lines towards right-hand point breaks.  His envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble actions ben­e­fit the nature he loves and are a great inspi­ra­tion and guide to event orga­niz­ers, providers, mar­keters, and exhibitors who are look­ing to reduce their envi­ron­men­tal impact and make their events green.

RELATED ARTICLES

Swell Guy — Out­side Magazine

Green Grow the Rock­ers — Fast Company

Back­stage with Green Rocker Jack John­son — Focus Earth

Artist Biog­ra­phy — Billboard.com

ADVENT GREEN EVENT ADVICE

Green Dis­play Booth — Teresa Drozak

10 Tips For an Eco-Friendly Trade Show — Bill Taylor

Advent leads from the fore­front of the cut­ting edge mod­ern mar­ket­ing indus­try by fuel­ing events with the power of brand.  Advent is com­mit­ted to social and envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity.  For more, check out Advent′s GREEN­mark or go to www.adventresults.com.

August 20, 2008 In By Advent

Advent makes the Inc. 5000 list

Inc.com announced Advent as a mem­ber of its Inc. 5000 list which was released today and tracks rapidly grow­ing com­pa­nies and iden­ti­fies what they do and why they are grow­ing.  This year′s list mea­sures rev­enue growth from 2003 through 2006 of pri­vately held and inde­pen­dent U.S. based com­pa­nies.  Advent also gar­nered a no. 24 rank­ing in the Top 50 Busi­nesses in Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro, TN.

Inc. 5000 cred­its Advent′s suc­cess to its lead­er­ship in the rapidly grow­ing area of multi-sensory mar­ket­ing through design and instal­la­tion of “expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing” dis­plays for trade show exhibits, events, and office envi­ron­ments.  It also notes Advent employ­ees′ propen­sity for fun.  The com­pany even con­dones elab­o­rate prac­ti­cal jokes.

So here is a big unapolo­getic pat on the back to the entire Advent team for all the cre­ativ­ity and sweat that went into win­ning a spot as one of The Fastest Grow­ing Pri­vate Com­pa­nies in America.

August 13, 2008 In Archives By Advent

History Taps the Power Experiential Marketing: Gettysburg′s New Battle Plan

Atten­dance is down.  Almost 150 years after the battle, Gettysburg is fight­ing back with expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing tactics.

For every South­ern boy four­teen years old, not once but when­ever he wants it, there is the instant when it′s still not yet two o′clock on that July after­noon in 1863, the brigades are in posi­tion behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loos­ened to break out and Pick­ett him­self with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand prob­a­bly and his sword in the other look­ing up the hill wait­ing for Longstreet to give the word and it′s all in the bal­ance, it hasn′t hap­pened yet, it hasn′t even begun yet, it not only hasn′t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that posi­tion and those cir­cum­stances which made more men than Gar­nett and Kem­per and Armis­tead and Wilcox look grave yet it′s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn′t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Penn­syl­va­nia, Mary­land, the world, the golden dome of Wash­ing­ton itself to crown with des­per­ate and unbe­liev­able vic­tory the des­per­ate gam­ble, the cast made two years ago…

–William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust

With vividly rich lan­guage, Faulkner out­lines the allure of Get­tys­burg.  He paints an intensely lucid pic­ture of a deeply emo­tional, tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ence of the type that a soul­fully impov­er­ished soci­ety craves.  The details are impos­si­bly real.  Pick­ets “long oiled ringlets” gleam from the page.  And the story-the story of Get­tys­burg drips with deed, hope, and gal­lantry.  It oozes with vis­ceral sus­pense at the brink of the war′s ful­crum and bleeds with hope­less devo­tion to the roman­tic ide­al­ism of a cause yet lost.  This pas­sage details a boy′s abil­ity to be com­pletely, emo­tion­ally, and bod­ily rapt in a moment.  How­ever, most of us are not four­teen year old South­ern boys and too rarely does our imag­i­na­tion serve as the vehi­cle to take us to such places.

Elliot Gru­ber, vice pres­i­dent of the non­profit Get­tys­burg Foun­da­tion under­stands the seduc­tion and he under­stand what con­sumers want.  “Most peo­ple aren′t vis­it­ing to learn,” he says.  “They want to have an expe­ri­ence, to be immersed in some­thing” (Read the arti­cle by Evan West).  Though vis­it­ing a bat­tle­field is in itself a markedly expe­ri­en­tial endeavor, the park and sur­round­ing com­mu­nity has been faced with the ugly vis­age of declin­ing inter­est, sag­ging atten­dance, and decreased rev­enue.  The thick ranks of con­sumers who used visit Get­tys­burg have been depleted by heavy bar­rage of artillery from mar­keters who com­pete for their atten­tion with eye-catching glitzy hype.  But now, one hun­dred and forty-five years later, Get­tys­burg is fight­ing back with sleek new dis­plays, multi-media exhibits, and inspired storytelling.

Our imag­i­na­tions are vehi­cles that carry us beyond the moon and beyond the bound­aries of time.  But these vehi­cles need fuel.  The Get­tys­burg National Mil­i­tary Park has torn a page from the expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing text book to add some nitro to the imag­i­na­tions and emo­tions of vis­i­tors in an attempt to boost atten­dance and length of stay.  With the help of a brand new $103 mil­lion vis­i­tor cen­ter that opened its doors on April 14, 2008 they hope to engage the evolv­ing tastes of tech savvy, media drenched con­sumers (visit the offi­cial site).

Good expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing focuses heav­ily on ‘story.′  Every brand, com­pany, prod­uct, and ser­vice has a story to tell and Get­tys­burg is lever­ag­ing the power of its own incred­i­ble story.  At Get­tys­burg it is not cases full of hun­dreds of old can­teens that inter­est or inspire people-it is the story of one can­teen.  Who was the man that lifted it to his lips?  What hap­pened to him?  How did the can­teen end up here?  Pres­i­dent of Advent mar­ket­ing firm, John Rober­son says, “In this world of text mes­sag­ing, face­book­ing, and TV peo­ple crave real­ity.  They want what is real and authen­tic.”  Com­bin­ing an engag­ing story with the very real expe­ri­ence of see­ing and hold­ing a can­teen that was car­ried by a Civil War sol­dier is an incred­i­ble way to con­nect with con­sumers and bring his­tory to life.  There is no sub­sti­tute for authenticity.

The park has spared no ingre­di­ents cook­ing up a fine expe­ri­en­tial dish for hun­gry con­sumers.  Mul­ti­me­dia and tech­nol­ogy have been lever­aged into mak­ing the park more attrac­tive.  They′ve made good use of star power.  You might rec­og­nize voice-overs by Mor­gan Free­man and Sam Water­ston.  They have replaced heavy con­tent laden exhibits with music and visu­ally stim­u­lat­ing exhibits.  Vis­i­tors view, eye-to-eye, life size man­nequins in period dress.   And when your stom­ach starts grum­bling a fine fare of “cast-iron chicken pot pie” and “Grandma Sarah′s corn bread” awaits you in the Refresh­ment Saloon.  All these ingre­di­ents seek to immerse vis­i­tors and pro­vide them with an expe­ri­ence that tran­scends the dusty pages of his­tory books and engages them in an intensely emo­tional, mean­ing­ful, and mem­o­rable way.

One hun­dred and forty-five years ago our nation was engaged in a great civil war, test­ing whether our nation, so con­ceived and so ded­i­cated, could endure.  It has.  And today, on a great battle-field of that war, the Get­tys­burg National Mil­i­tary Park is using expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing tech­niques to increase traf­fic and appre­ci­a­tion for the site.  Admit­tedly, the new $103 mil­lion dol­lar vis­i­tor cen­ter can­not dedicate-cannot consecrate-cannot hallow-this ground.  The brave men, dead yet liv­ing in our mem­o­ries, who strug­gled there, have con­se­crated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.  Yet through inno­v­a­tive tech­niques the park has ded­i­cated itself to the task of ensur­ing that the world never for­get what they did there and to the task of the liv­ing, to be ded­i­cated to the unfin­ished work and increased devo­tion to the virtues for which they gave the last full mea­sure of devotion.

Related Arti­cles

Next Travel: The Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg — Evan West, Fast Com­pany Magazine

Def­i­n­i­tion of Immer­sive Marketing

The Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg — from Wikipedia.com

William Faulkner on the web

Expe­ri­en­tial Mar­ket­ing and Star Power

Advent leads from the fore­front of the cut­ting edge mod­ern mar­ket­ing indus­try by fuel­ing brands with the explo­sive power of expe­ri­ences.  Advent cre­ates an emo­tional bond with audi­ences by lever­ag­ing the unri­valed effec­tive­ness of expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing through tar­geted events, engag­ing exhibits, and branded spaces.  High impact and high touch strate­gies mark Advent′s cre­ative advan­tage and have helped rapidly expand­ing brands com­mu­ni­cate mes­sages that gain imme­di­ate and last­ing res­o­nance with con­sumers.  For more, please visit www.adventresults.com.

August 8, 2008 In By Advent

Definition of Immersive Marketing

“If you build it they will come.” — Field of Dreams

Immer­sive mar­ket­ing is the heir appar­ent to the expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing and cus­tomer expo­sure man­age­ment philoso­phies.  The obvi­ous impli­ca­tion of ‘immer­sive mar­ket­ing′ is that it com­pletely envelops con­sumers in the brand.  But what does that mean prac­ti­cally?  Shar Van Boskirk of For­rester Mar­ket­ing Research defines immer­sive mar­ket­ing as “a cohe­sive and all-encompassing expe­ri­ence across any chan­nel where the cus­tomer is.” This def­i­n­i­tion is a good jump­ing off point for our dis­cus­sion and offers some buoyancy.

In order for this to be a use­ful def­i­n­i­tion (like a use­ful brand) it must dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself from close cousins like expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing.  Boskirk is right to point out the “cohe­sive and all-encompassing nature” of immer­sive mar­ket­ing.  There is more of a focus on broad­en­ing the expe­ri­ence beyond the expe­ri­ence to include pre-sale, during-the-sale, and even heavy post-sale engage­ment.  A suc­cess­ful immer­sive engage­ment goes beyond pro­vid­ing a sin­gle, mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence in such a way that the brand becomes a part of the consumer′s lifestyle.  If you can excuse the neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tion, we could say that it achieves a cultish following.

A more sub­tle dis­tinc­tion is the degree to which the audi­ence is engaged.  Engage­ment is the crux of expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing.  Immer­sive mar­ket­ing trends show a focus on chal­leng­ing the audi­ence and spurring an even more intense fluid, dynamic, two-way flow.  A call to action is a vital ingre­di­ent to any immer­sive mar­ket­ing campaign.

Immer­sive mar­ket­ing does not fol­low an inside-out approach to sell­ing.  Tra­di­tional forms of mar­ket­ing tend to shout at cus­tomers and achieve inter­rup­tion.  Think about it.  Say you are watch­ing Saved by the Bell.  Zack is about to ask Kelly to the dance and at the tow­er­ing zenith of sus­pense… Will she say yes?  Will she go with Slater instead?  Just when you can take any more of the sweaty palmed, knee quak­ing crescendo of ado­les­cent ten­sion and doubt, what hap­pens?  Laun­dry deter­gent.  A laun­dry deter­gent add inter­rupts your tele­vi­sion show with a vain hubris­tic play for your atten­tion.  Immer­sive mar­ket­ing takes more of a concierge type role.

We all know about “pas­sive aggres­sive” but what about “aggres­sively pas­sive.” Immer­sive mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are dis­tinctly pas­sive.  Friendly, invit­ing envi­ron­ments invite a passerby to step into a retail store instead of scream­ing at him to do so.  Rather than fol­low­ing loud instruc­tions the con­sumer is sub­tly encour­aged to take a proac­tive first step and thus open flood­gates the kind two-way fluid inter­ac­tion that brand man­agers dream about.  A suc­cess­ful pas­sive approach does not just hap­pen.  Mar­keters must be extremely aggres­sive in their pas­sive approach.  Dili­gent work with design­ers, archi­tects, and brand man­agers is what achieves and sub­tly seduc­tive brand space.  Intense screen­ing and edu­ca­tion will pro­vide you with a smil­ing, help­ful, and approach­able front line staff.

With a focus on aggres­sively dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing your brand to be more pas­sive and invit­ing you can achieve great results and higher ROI.  Immer­sive mar­ket­ing seeks to engage audi­ences through fluid inter­ac­tion and engage­ment that exceeds the expe­ri­ence itself.   If you do these things, “Peo­ple will come, Ray.  Peo­ple will most def­i­nitely come” (Field of Dreams).

Related Arti­cles:

The Future: Immer­sive Mar­ket­ing by Shar Van Boskirk

Can “Immer­sion Mar­ket­ing” Save Mar­ket­ing From Itself? by Gra­ham Hill

Immer­sive Mar­ket­ing: Chal­lenge Your Audi­ence by Bill Taylor

Advent leads from the fore­front of the cut­ting edge mod­ern mar­ket­ing indus­try by fuel­ing brands with the explo­sive power of immer­sion.  Advent cre­ates an emo­tional bond with audi­ences by lever­ag­ing the unri­valed effec­tive­ness of expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing through tar­geted events, engag­ing exhibits, and branded spaces.  High impact and high touch strate­gies mark Advent′s cre­ative advan­tage and have helped rapidly expand­ing brands com­mu­ni­cate mes­sages that gain imme­di­ate and last­ing res­o­nance with con­sumers.  For more, please visit www.adventresults.com.

August 7, 2008 In By Advent

The Changing Face of Face-to-Face Marketing

Gen­er­a­tional trends are trans­form­ing business

The experts weigh in: John Kil­metis, Phil Good­man, and John Rober­son dis­cuss the future of trade shows

The face of Amer­ica is chang­ing.  It is get­ting younger.  The mighty ranks of the Baby Boomer gen­er­a­tion are dwin­dling against the ris­ing tide of their chil­dren, the Echo Boomers, also called Gen­er­a­tion Y.   His­tor­i­cally, trade shows were the pri­mary tool used by busi­nesses for shar­ing infor­ma­tion, net­work­ing, gain­ing indus­try spe­cific edu­ca­tion, and stay­ing up-to-date.  Many exec­u­tives con­tinue to cling to this obso­lete, Pre­cam­brian vision of tradeshows and refuse to believe the world could be any­thing but flat.  The old, con­tent laden, infor­ma­tion dri­ven phi­los­o­phy is dying a painful (and painfully bor­ing) death.

Enter gen­er­a­tion Y.  Gen­er­a­tion Y includes those of us born between 1977 and 1994, are just turn­ing 30, and in seven years we will inherit the earth and con­sti­tute a major­ity of the pop­u­la­tion.   And, hold on to your seats… because these new boomers are begin­ning to take the reins and steer cor­po­ra­tions from admin­is­tra­tive and lead­er­ship roles (check out the cnn.com blog ‘young peo­ple who rock).  This chang­ing of the guard means chang­ing the way we do business.

In a recent inter­view with Smart Meet­ings mag­a­zine, Phil Good­man, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Gen­er­a­tion Tran­si­tional Mar­ket­ing, describes the dif­fer­ent psy­che dis­played by gen­er­a­tion Y.  “They like one-on-one per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion.”  “They are basi­cally more opti­mistic than Gen X; they like chal­lenges.  You don′t com­mand them, you col­lab­o­rate with them.  They want a work/life bal­ance.”  He also describes Gen Y as self-inventive team mem­bers who often get bored in meet­ings (Read the Arti­cle).

As a mem­ber of the up and com­ing gen­er­a­tion I resent the con­cep­tion that Gen­er­a­tion Y “gets bored in meet­ings” and that we have some­how devolved from upright humans into hunched crea­tures sport­ing casual short sleeves and even shorter atten­tion spans.  Tak­ing advan­tage of a 20 minute lay­over in a bustling inter­na­tional air­port, I chewed on the mildly bit­ter notion.  Mean­while, I glanced up at CNN play­ing on the flat screen above me, checked the text mes­sages, voice mails, and missed calls on my Black­berry, turned on my iPod, con­nected wire­lessly on my lap­top, instant mes­saged a friend in New Zealand, and began pulling up research for an arti­cle.  And it hit me.  Maybe Phil Good­man was right.  We do inter­act with the world dif­fer­ently.  Trade Shows will have to change too.

THE OLD SCHOOL    

In his arti­cle, “Trade Show Real­ity: ‘This is This,′” fea­tured in Moti­va­tional Strate­gies mag­a­zine, Jim Kil­metis pines over the bygone glo­ri­ous trade show days of yore when the isles were all car­peted with golden fleece and packed with eager, party-going atten­dees who toted heavy purses and fat bud­gets that burst at the seams and over­flowed with sparkling gems.  His lamen­ta­tions include sev­eral obser­va­tions that help explain the shift­ing focus of tradeshows.  By his account, trade shows were the main source of up-to-date infor­ma­tion, the main source of con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion for a spe­cific indus­try, and an invalu­able method of rela­tion­ship build­ing.  As Kil­metis hints, this type of trade show is in its death throws.

As for the out dated notion that trade shows are the main source of up-to-date infor­ma­tion — for­get it.  A trade show maybe a good place to launch a new prod­uct, but to say that you need to fly across coun­try to hear about it is just shy of ludi­crous.  The amount of infor­ma­tion and the ease with which it can be obtained via inter­net is stag­ger­ing.  In a his­tor­i­cal con­text, there is no par­al­lel.  Many grad stu­dents never even visit a library.  I would ven­ture that given a com­puter, an inter­net con­nec­tion, and five min­utes most 12 year olds could find some­thing as inane and obscure as an up-to-date pop­u­la­tion esti­mate of Tim­buktu, Mali.  It should not be a prob­lem then, find­ing specs on the new iPhone or Toy­ota Prius. Today there is a vastly expan­sive sea of con­tin­u­ously updated con­tent that exists, quite lit­er­ally, at our fingertips.

There is more damn­ing news for trade shows.  The days of cheap travel have “van­ished like a fart in the wind” (Shaw­shank Redemp­tion).  Soar­ing gas prices do not equal hap­pily soar­ing jets.  “Jet fuel prices have changed the whole busi­ness model, so we don′t have any his­tory to draw on here,” said Joe Schwi­eter­man, a Trans­porta­tion expert at DePaul Uni­ver­sity.  A report by CNNMoney.com reports that many air­lines are fac­ing bank­ruptcy (read the arti­cle).  And with bank­ruptcy loom­ing dark on the hori­zon, air­lines are look­ing for ways to pass those costs on to the cus­tomers.  Amer­i­can Air­lines and United Air­lines have both imple­mented extra sur­charges for pre­vi­ously free ser­vices like checked bag­gage.  South­west had hoped to make it through 2008 with­out sig­nif­i­cant price increases but has been forced to con­cede to the mount­ing pres­sure of ris­ing fuel costs (read the arti­cle).  Schwi­eter­man con­cludes that, “at some point, air travel will just have to be 20% more expen­sive.”  What does all this mean for trade shows?  The costs of rock­et­ing fuel prices will cut deeply into already tight­en­ing travel budgets.

What about Kil­metis′ asser­tion that trade shows are an invalu­able method of rela­tion­ship build­ing?  He points out, “Today′s younger gen­er­a­tion is far more com­fort­able build­ing rela­tion­ships through e-mail, instant mes­sag­ing, text mes­sag­ing, face­book, etc, etc, etc.”  Our net­works are increas­ingly being bound by the invis­i­ble chords of cyber­space and cell phone fre­quen­cies.  Face-to-face is fac­ing steep competion.

The prog­no­sis for trade shows seems dire at first glance.  Vital signs are fail­ing and the old pre­scrip­tions don′t work.  The rem­edy is not more of the same.  Com­pa­nies must adapt to sur­vive.  How­ever, the new face of trade shows is not bad news: its just new news.  And new news is fan­tas­tic news for com­pa­nies look­ing to repo­si­tion them­selves at the pin­na­cle of their industry.

THE NEW NEWS   

Peo­ple don′t need to go to trade shows for updated infor­ma­tion.  True.  Thank­fully though, there is a big ‘but.′  The ‘but′ is that com­pa­nies still need to an excit­ing way to release infor­ma­tion.  An inter­net release of a PFD file is about as sexy as kiss­ing your grandma.  Post­ing the specs on the impos­ing 6,262 cc V12 Fer­rari FXXis well and good, espe­cially for ana­lyt­i­cal engi­neer­ing types.  But the major­ity of the pop­u­la­tion is not aroused or emo­tion­ally engaged by num­bers.  Instead, they are turned on by the FXX′s cherry paint, deep con­tours, smooth curves, and the gut­tural growl that revs into an 8,500 rpm scream.  Though tech­no­log­i­cally enthralled as the echo boomers may be, first hand expe­ri­ence of a prod­uct con­fers knowl­edge and under­stand­ing that tran­scends fac­tual data.  This expe­ri­en­tial advan­tage is denied web­sites and afforded to trade shows and other indus­try spe­cific events.  It is irreplaceable.

Ris­ing travel costs and tight­en­ing bud­gets does not mean you should stop mar­ket­ing (“Mar­ket­ing in a Slow Econ­omy”).  If fuel is a resource in short sup­ply, then effi­ciency is a bound­less renew­able resource.  In Buzzmar­ket­ing, author Mark Hughes, dis­cusses the neces­sity to cre­ate ‘buzz′ around your prod­uct.  You need to do things to get peo­ple talk­ing.  He cites stud­ies that con­clude word-of-mouth mar­ket­ing is the most trusted form of adver­tis­ing in our mar­ket­ing sat­u­rated soci­ety.  Even bet­ter news is that word-of-mouth can be achieved for free.  Live events like trade shows offer a face-to-face high-impact touch point to begin a rip­ple effect that can spread far beyond the ini­tial con­tact.  A study by the Event Mar­ket­ing Insti­tute describes 3 zones of influ­ence cre­ated by events:

• Attendee Zone: it includes vis­i­tors, view­ers, engagers, and leads.
• Influ­ence Zone: it includes peo­ple who heard about the event sec­ond hand and is, on aver­age, 4 times the num­ber of the Attendee Zone.
• Viral Zone: it includes all peo­ple touched by word-of-mouth, web, and viral influ­ence and is 10 times larger than the Influ­ence Zone.

Focus on spread­ing the impact of your event far beyond the event itself to achieve max­i­mum mar­ket­ing effi­ciency and make up for ris­ing costs.  If atten­dance at a trade show is low, it does not nec­es­sar­ily fol­low that the num­ber of peo­ple touched by the trade show is also low.

David Clay­ton has been a crit­i­cal observer and stu­dent of social net­work­ing behav­ior of the Echo Boomers′ col­le­giate lives as they move on towards the pro­fes­sional world.  He is Direc­tor of Cam­pus Min­istries at Lip­scomb Uni­ver­sity and has offered some insights into broad the effects of vir­tual net­work­ing.  “It has changed the way we build rela­tion­ships.”  But has it changed for the better?

“Our fas­ci­na­tion with tech­nol­ogy has actu­ally brought us to the point where we are trad­ing in real rela­tion­ships for arti­fi­cial ones. I remem­ber walk­ing into one of our dorms this year and there were 15 guys in the com­puter lab, every­one of them chat­ting with some­one on Face­book, yet no one was speak­ing to each other… We have traded in what is real for that which is not.”

This is why states that Gen­er­a­tion Y is “the loneli­est gen­er­a­tion.”  There exists a dearth of inti­macy.  Bank­ing, work, chat­ting, and even dat­ing can all be done online.  And if you didn′t mind order­ing in every­day, you would never even have to leave your cave.  But as in the Plato′s alle­gory of the cave (The Repub­licbk. VII, 516b-c) offers some hope for mar­ket­ing events.  Once some­one has entered the light of day, he will not want to return to the dark illu­sion­ary world of a cave in which every­one has cre­ated their own real­i­ties.  Devel­op­ing face-to-face per­sonal busi­ness rela­tion­ships at trade shows lends a sense of inti­macy, trust, and emo­tional con­nec­tion not offered by detached vir­tual relationships.

THE VISION

John Rober­son, pres­i­dent of Advent, a mar­ket­ing firm based in Nashville, Ten­nessee reveals his vision for the new trade show model that main­tains focus on the unpar­ralelled effec­tive­ness of face-to-face.  A staffed trade show exhibit used to exist by itself as a per­fectly sound mar­ket­ing strat­egy.  “The tra­di­tional trade show model is too pas­sive,” states Rober­son.  “You have so many ways to get con­nected.”  Rober­son advises that rather than view­ing the inter­net and tech­nol­ogy as an enemy, instead we need to embrace that tech­nol­ogy and aggres­sively tar­get Gen­er­a­tion Y.  Tech­nol­ogy and vir­tual com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be used in con­junc­tion with tra­di­tional face-to-face approaches to cre­ate a seam­less harmony.

“The event has become ‘the mid­dle.′  It is only a part of an over­all strat­egy,” states Rober­son.  Pre-show touch points should include emails, texts, and blogs in addi­tion to tra­di­tional mail­ers.  The oft neglected post-show fol­low ups are a vital com­po­nent of max­i­miz­ing your ROI.  Videos, pic­tures, and pro­mos from the event can all be sent via email and all make mem­o­rable impres­sions on the attendees.

Regard­less of the advan­tages of get­ting vir­tu­ally con­nected, Rober­son is clear: “Its all about face-to-face.”  The event or the trade show itself is the crown­ing cap­stone of the over­all strat­egy.  “Face-to-face mar­ket­ing is the most effec­tive form of mar­ket­ing out there,” says Rober­son.  Don′t believe him?  A study released by UCLA states that an aston­ish­ing 93 per­cent of com­mu­ni­ca­tion effec­tive­ness is deter­mined by non-verbal cues (read the About.com arti­cle).  That means that any­time you text, email, or instant mes­sage you are los­ing a dev­as­tat­ing 93 per­cent of your effec­tive­ness.  That face-to-face inter­ac­tion is what will stir the emo­tions and loy­alty of your audi­ence.  It is the same tool that will increase the effec­tive­ness of your event and spread the impact far beyond that ini­tial contact.

An arti­cle on by Paul Gillan of Exhibitor Online com­pli­ments Roberson′s phi­los­o­phy.  He writes, “Blogs and pod­casts won′t detract from or com­pete with your events.  In fact, these online jug­ger­nauts can give your mar­ket­ing efforts a seri­ous cyber boost — at lit­tle or no cost to you.” (Read the arti­cle.)  He dis­cusses how O′Reilly Media posted con­tent from their Emerg­ing Tech­nol­ogy con­fer­ence.  Detrac­tors com­plained that atten­dance and ticket sales would suf­fer.  But event mar­keters rejoice!  Low and behold, the oppo­site was true.  Actual atten­dance rose sig­nif­i­cantly and over­all expo­sure to the event grew expo­nen­tially due to the internet′s mas­sive vir­tual audience.

The trade show is not dead.  Face-to-face mar­ket­ing remains the paragon of effi­cacy.  But it must change in order to ful­fill the needs of a new gen­er­a­tion.  There is an encroach­ing wave of short atten­tion spanned, tech lov­ing Echo Boomers sweep­ing towards the busi­ness world.  In order for event mar­ket­ing and trade shows to sur­vive these new con­di­tions, they can­not duck-dive under the wave.  It is not a pass­ing fad.  Instead, mar­keters must drop head­long into the curl and ride it all the way in.

For more infor­ma­tion on tradeshows and expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing, visit our blog at www.adventresults.com.