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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.

Authored By Advent

Advent partners with organizations to help them visually express differentiation.