17 Jan
What Brands Want: Experiential Marketing Report
Written by our Insight team.
The ever-growing culture of ad avoidance, coupled with consumers’ desire for something a bit different to the norm, has created major shifts in the marketing landscape. More than ever before, brands are investing in building emotional connections with consumers, bringing memorable elements of surprise and delight to boost their perception.
Giant Christmas trees at mainline train stations. Copycat Love Island villas. Pop-ups popping up all over the place. Experiential has become a powerful sales driver by perfectly combining the physical and emotional.
Driven by Millennial and Gen-Z demand, experiential budgets are therefore holding firm, despite overall marketing budgets shrinking for the first time in seven years. This is a generation that prioritises making memories over the ownership of stuff. The statistics speak for themselves. 82% of Millennials took part in or attended at least one live brand-related experience in 2018, while 72% said they’d rather spend their hard-earned cash on experiences as opposed to products or services.
But while experiential is here to stay, barriers to adoption still exist. Many brands struggle to stand out from the crowd, while others haven’t tapped into the power of experience yet. So, what is it that they want from experiential?
“I think it’s becoming increasingly important to measure ROI. We’d love it if it was a natural part of every activation.” – LVMH
LVMH is just one of the various brands we interviewed at one of the three Experiential events we held in 2019. In this timeframe, we received over 50 briefs from brands that enabled us to connect them with agencies that can help them on their experiential journey.
We discussed Experiential with the likes of Gympass, Flight Centre and Disney to uncover what brands want from this marketing channel, their motivations for embracing it, what they can do to stand out in a marketplace crowded with experiences and how agencies can help them with their potential.
Backed by our unparalleled industry knowledge, insight from briefs we received and extensive research from our Insight team, our latest report takes the lid off the trends driving brands’ shift to experiential, the role technology plays and what it all means for agencies. One thing is for certain: experiential has become big business.
Download the full report HERE.
At Ingenuity we understand the wider agency and brand relationship. With insights gained from years of experience and having worked with the best-of-the-best on both sides of the brand-agency relationship, we can help facilitate viable partnerships that last. If you’d like to learn more from our insights or want to gain a clearer view of the agency-brand ecosystem, contact Duncan on newbusiness@ingenuitylondon.com for more information.