Coca-Cola

Well that’s the Christmas period almost over with for 2015 and we saw lots of brands and companies marketing their products and services through experiential marketing in different ways over the last couple of months. In my next few blog posts I will discuss a couple of different campaigns that we all potentially saw and took part in. 

Coca-Cola

First up is the Coca-Cola experiential campaign that runs yearly and has been for several years now, and it is an indication for a lot of people that the ‘holidays are coming’ as soon as they see the icon that is the Coca-Cola truck. Which has been used as a promotional tool for Coca-Cola since 1995. 

This year the truck visited a total of 46 destinations in the UK from November 22^nd to December 23^rd, where members of the public were able to get a free photograph with the iconic truck whilst listening to some Christmas classics and sipping on a complimentary can of Coca-Cola.

Firstly this campaign taps in to our sensory receptors. The truck’s lights are all lit up making it look magical for everyone to appreciate and mirror how it looks in the adverts, with Coca-Cola written literally everywhere you looked. These are connecting with our vision senses, creating a memory for the public who came along to this event.

Secondly, sound was used at the event. There were classic Christmas songs being played from large speakers around the truck to get everyone tapping their feet and getting in to Christmas spirit creating a happy atmosphere. As it is seen that aspects of sound affect the way people behave and their feelings towards products and experiences (Soloman, 2006, pg. 43).

Taste, of course the main reason of these campaigns, is another receptor that is used. Everyone who visits the truck (under 12s must have been accompanied by an adult) where all given a free can of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke or Coca-Cola Zero, which you were given along with the Coca-Cola tagline of “Taste Christmas with this uplifting taste”. If you also decided to go for the option of Coca-Cola Zero you were reminded about the fact it has zero calories, Coca-Cola’s way of educating their customers.

There were a couple of methods to receive a free can of Coca-Cola, some visitors found themselves having to perform a little dance along to the music in order to receive their free can of Coca-Cola. This consumer involvement added to the memorable experience Coca-Cola was trying to create.

Another opportunity to get yourself a free can and the most popular way was to get a picture with the iconic Coca-Cola truck. You were handed a can and a unique code, and then sent up on to a podium to get a photograph, which after was edited and then uploaded on to the Coca-Cola website, accessed with your unique code. This created an opportunity for consumer involvement again as it gave the chance for the customer to share their photograph on their social media sites with the hashtag #holidaysarecoming which is promoting their brand, however the consumer is actually doing the promoting instead.

The photograph that the customer receives has a filter added over the top which includes several more Coca-Cola branding on it. Below is the picture I got, as you can see there is 7 promotional signage on it, making it hard for you not to forget where this picture came from. 

Below is an example of the picture you recieve:

By sharing the photograph also links to the Self Concept. The picture creates the idea of the customer being in the Christmas spirit and possibly creating a happy family image which can be linked to the ideal self and the looking glass self. It is promoting this image to their friends and family in hope that it portrays an image of happiness and that they are in the Christmas spirit. 

Creating this memorable experience will keep the idea of habitual when decision making around this product as this positive consumer involvement, it will encourage the consumers to keep on buying this product so the company can keep putting on events such as these. It may even open up a new market, with people trying Coca-Cola for the first time, it could encourage them to start buying Coca-Cola more often. 

Here are a couple of other photographs taken whilst visiting the Coca-Cola truck this year.  

< Queuing for the free can of Coca-Cola.

Choice of different Coca-Cola products on offer                         >

< Coca-Cola truck all lit up

Me and my flat mate's selfie with the truck                                         >

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Cantina Bar

The countdown to the new Star Wars film The Force Awakens has started to almost be in single figures and there are lots more merchandise of the franchise appearing in shops around us.

Next month in Manchester there will be a convention held called “For the love of the Force” between 4^th-6^th December and part of the convention to promote the new film being released and attract attendees to the convention they are opening The Cantina bar!

The bar is a replica of the bar The Cantina that we see in the Star Wars films and you are able to order the drinks (cocktails) that are drunk in the film. This form of experiential marketing is great in my opinion! The fan base for this film is huge and is something a lot of people will want to get involved with, hopefully attracting new market as well, by attendees bringing their friends along to this bar to experience this, in hope that it inspire them to watch the new film and attend this convention.

This form of experiential sensory marketing will be connecting with our senses by creating an environment that we have seen in the film (sight and touch), creating drinks that are in the film for us to try ourselves (sight, smell and taste), providing music that is heard in the film in the bar (hearing).

So why not go and take a look at this bar and try for yourself some Bantha Milk; famously drunk by Luke Skywalker himself, or even some Wookie Juice, a Princess Punch or a Jam Jar Binks and have a look around this convention.

Below is the link to the Cantina scene from Star Wars so if you have never seen it before you can get a feel for what it would look like. 

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2015

#ManOnTheMoon

It’s here… The advert that thousands of people have been waiting in anticipation for, creating smiles and tears and totally over run social media websites. It’s the John Lewis Christmas advert.

Last year’s advert was a huge success and touched the hearts of many people, and in my opinion this year would be a very hard to beat. The story of a little boy and a cute penguin called Monty delivered the message of “Give someone the Christmas they have been dreaming of” by creating a story that everyone emotionally connected with as it brought love, family and friends altogether. See below the advert link

On Friday the 6th November at 8am the 2015 John Lewis advert was released. Two weeks later it has had 17,511,431 views on YouTube, the new advert has created a lot of debate between people. Some absolutely loving it and other opinions of dissatisfaction with it. See link below to watch the video.

Every year around Christmas time John Lewis creates an advert as a way of promoting their brand and the products they sell, but instead they do it in a way that we are not fully aware until the end of the advert where we see what we are actually being exposed to.

This year saw Man on the Moon, the story of a small girl living on earth who looks in to her telescope every day to look at an elderly man who is on the moon, and she does something for him this Christmas, buying him a telescope so he can look at the world and see this little girl as well. Creating the message of “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas” and ending the advert with “continue the story”.

Instead of being given advert or catalogue that just shows standalone pictures of the products John Lewis sell, they create a story for us to connect with and give an emotional response, and at the same time creating product placement, by show us their products subliminally.  There are over 100 products in the 2 minute advert; that range from the telescope the young girl uses to the wrapping paper, all products can be found on the John Lewis website under a section called Man on the Moon.

It looks at the idea of old and new, family, love & togetherness at this time of year, and I really felt like it made me think about my family and especially lost ones, and did bring me goosebumps, making me want to do something special for the people I am lucky to have in my life still.

Although, the subject of this advert is actually quite saddening as the old man is seen as being very lonely on the moon by himself, once he receives the present from the small girl everything changes as he is finally connected. Looking at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory you can see the first three stages have been successfully met by John Lewis in the advert; physiological, safety and belongingness. These three stages are what marketers aim to meet in marketing campaigns as the last two (ego needs and self-actualization) are actually harder to achieve in this form. You see the first three stages being met by:

Physiological: both characters have water, food and a place to sleep.

Safety: both characters have shelter and protection. The old man may be on the moon but you see that he has a little home and the little girl has a home too and her family around her to keep her safe. If the old man had no home, it would have created a very different story and feelings towards it.

Belongingness: we see the idea of love and friendship between the two characters bringing the idea of belongingness to the advert, knowing that there is someone there and thinking of him even though they are millions of miles away from each other.

The advert creates the Affective decision making process for consumers and motivates them to go buy their products because it created this emotional trigger for people to buy from this retailer instantaneously. Also by creating the tag line of “continue the story” motivates the consumer to do just that. Go out and create their own follow on from this story. This could be buying their children the telescope from the advert for them to look out at stars and the moon, or even just buying a gift for a loved one from their retail stores this Christmas. It could also be prompting consumers who are more of habitual decision makers, as they only really shop at John Lewis annually around this time of year.

In my views, I think this advert is successful and does what John Lewis set out to do and that is create a message through a story that we can all emotionally connect too. Everything in the video, from the beautiful acoustic cover of Oasis’s Half the World Away which relates to the story, to the tear that is shed by the old man and the happiness of the little girl getting to see the old man happy is all beautiful and creates the consumer involvement for the viewer. Creating involvement in many ways, for example by letting you position yourself in that story, making you think about loved ones, motivating you to do something for someone you love this Christmas to also sharing your feelings about the advert by using the hashtag #manonthemoon on social media.

What are your views on this advert?

Carlsberg

Carlsberg

Probably the best poster in the world.

Billboards, whether or not their small or huge, they are something that are around us all the time that we all notice, promoting different brands, events, films, etc. Normally just providing us with key information we need to know, could just be one word, a couple of words with pictures or even just a picture. But Carlsberg, a Danish brewing company, decided to go one step further with their billboard back in April 2015 named ‘Probably the best poster in the world’.

The company Carlsberg situated a billboard in the middle of busy London Street, Brick Lane, where lots of people go every day and is close to Shoreditch, where the taste for craft beers and ales are becoming more popular than mainstream lagers. By placing it here it would hopefully reconnect this market with this product again.  

Very simply the billboard just said ‘Probably the best poster in the world’ in the same font as the Carlsberg logo on a green background, the same colour Carlsberg use for their packaging, creating this connection between the stimuli and the brand so people knew what brand it was straight away, as our minds remember these connections between colour and font. Then situated in the middle of the billboard was a working beer tap so people could pull themselves a pint and have a taste of this product whilst walking past.

Watch the link to see the reaction to this poster..

People did seem a bit wary of this poster to begin with and didn’t really know if it was real and whether it was going to actually give you a ‘taster’ of this lager or whether it was just there for show but people were quick to realise it wasn’t and started lining up to have a go.

This is an example of experiential marketing, Carlsberg had created a link between their advertising and the consumer by creating an experience for them to take part in. Carlserg provided their audience with a chance to try their product for free, so instead of just reading a billboard about their product they could actually taste, smell and experience it for themselves. So in the future when they see other billboards or even this product for sale they have this connection as they have already once tried it and could influence their decision making.

They also encouraged people to share their experience on social media using the hashtag trend #probablythebest creating publicity for the brand and passing this message of that Carlsberg is potentially the best lager in the market, in hope that this raises their sales.

The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead

#DeadYourself 

This month saw season 6 of the TV show The Walking Dead from AMC come back to our TV screens! I am a huge fan of this show and I have been very excited for it to return. For anyone who is unfamiliar with this TV show, it is about a group of people who are trying to survive in the world that has been overrun by zombies, it is definitely worth a watch.

Whilst on Instagram a couple of days ago the account for The Walking Dead (amcthewalkingdead) uploaded a picture of a fan who had taken part in their trend ‘#DeadYourself’ by downloading their app ‘Dead Yourself’ and making their own picture. In the Instagram post they state that the app has been updated and this has been done for the new season of this TV show.

This is a perfect example of experiential marketing by AMC who are the creators of this show. They are engaging their viewers with an experience that they can take part in and have a bit of fun with, and at the same time AMC are promoting the show in a different way than just a poster on a billboard on the street.

The app is available from app stores both for Apple and Android products and is very simple to navigate and straightforward which makes the app user happy and willing to proceed and take part. There are several options to choose from on the app, each of them all related to different parts in the TV program using props, characters and imagery. The reasoning for this is to give the user a feel that they are part of this Walking Dead movement. This is using the method of sensory marketing as it is getting their viewers involved through their senses of touch and vision. While the whole time using the app at the bottom is a reminder that the TV show is starting again on a certain date, time and what channel it will be shown on.

Each of the subcategories on the app are different and you can ‘zombify’ yourself on them, by choosing different mouths, eyes, wounds, weapons, and more. Below you can see the process on one of the subcategories that I took part in, finally ending it off with giving your picture a tagline. Most of the taglines included #dead which links in with the #deadyourself that AMC are trying to get trending.
           

Once you have made your zombified image of yourself, it saves the image to your phone straight away. When saving this image the app adds a filter over the top which says “FOX The Walking Dead. Dead Yourself” which is AMC’s way of promoting and marketing the show again. After you are given the opportunity to share this image with your friends on every social media site you are a member of. By sharing this image you are passing this message on about The Walking Dead show and the #deadyourself trend, which is what the company are wanting you to do, it is cheap and easy marketing for the show. As well as creating this platform to share your image with your friends, you also get given your own gallery on the app where people from all around the world can see your creations and AMC often pick a fan’s picture out to be shared on the Instagram page.

AMC have been very clever when choosing this route to market their show. They have picked something creative for their fans to get involved with and created a trend which will be seen all over the internet, by different ages and in different countries. This is an easy and cheap way of marketing, as once their fans get involved and start sharing their pictures on the social media pages, their friends will start to see these pictures and question what they are for. This may result in them downloading the app for themselves and taking part and continuing this cycle, by passing the message on to their friends, and so on. Doing this is raising awareness of what the point in these pictures are, and it is for the release of the new season of The Walking Dead, which you can see written in the corner of any of the pictures created and on the app home screen. Each time one of these pictures are shared with the #deadyourself trend, more and more people are exposed to this movement and may take an interest in to watching the TV program.

Below are a couple of my images that my friend and I created with the app, seems perfect as it is just in time for Halloween as well!

Consumer Behaviour and Experiential Marketing

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou, Poet & Philosopher

Welcome to my blog where I am going to be discussing experiential marketing and consumer behaviour. I will be sharing my personal experiences and other examples that I come across. The quote I stated at the start of my blog is so true and this is what companies and organisations need to think about when marketing their ideas.

Soloman (2014, pg.33) defines Consumer Behaviour as the “study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.” We are seeing that a lot more companies are coming away from the traditional method of marketing (for example leaflets and posters) and moving more towards the idea of experiential marketing and creating an experience that will stay with the consumer, as they want more than just satisfaction from the product or service.

We are seeing a shift from traditional marketing to experiential marketing as companies are seeing that it is not all about that ‘purchase moment’ for a consumer. It is actually an ongoing process from the moment the consumer thinks about that product or service, so they need to remember the consumption process; pre-purchase issues, purchase issues and post-purchase issues, engaging the customer throughout.

References

Solomon, M. (2014). Consumer behavior. Harlow: Pearson/Education.