Sunday, 10 April 2016

#CerealLovers




Hey everyone, just seen this really cool pop-up café by Nestlé and thought I would share it with you all, I really want to go!





Nestlé have launched a pop–up cereal café, Aisle of Wonders, from March 25th to April 7th in Westfield Stratford, where customers can make their own pick and mix cereal combination from all of their products. All the cereals can be enjoyed with a range of different toppings, milks and yoghurts.  The cafe was open from 10 am to 9 pm and was a great opportunity for a “great way to start the day”, a late breakfast for lunch, a quick snack through the day or evening or even a unique, alternative Tea treat! 


Nestlé are offering customers to try their range of products for free as well! Where you get the opportunity of buying your own personalised cereal creation afterwards in the pop up store.

This is a great way for Nestlé to let customers to experience their products through a low risk experience as the customers are receiving the product samples for free, which means they are able to try new products and see if they like them, with no cost attached. Which then will lead to consumers knowing more accurately what products they prefer by Nestlé for future. 


The Pick n Mix style of café plays on old sweet shops themes which will appeal to children to come and experience this café. It can also appeal to older generations as the Pick n Mix theme will bring nostalgia feelings to the event for them. The Pick n Mix factor of the event creates a fun and exciting feel to the event for the customers to join in. 


They also promote the hashtag #CerealLovers for customers to use and showcase their creations to their friends on social media websites. This is a way of gaining consumer interaction between the brand and customer that will boost the relationship for Nestlé. It also is a free way of advertisement for Nestlé, bonus!



Don’t worry if you have missed the pop-up cereal café in Westfield as it is moving to Manchester on the 9th April – 15th April in the Arndale Centre.

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

A Trip Down Memory Lane



In this following blog I am going to talk about an event I set up and ran this year during one of my modules at University. The event was called “A Trip Down Memory Lane” and was held for elderly generations to come for a memory afternoon with the theme of a vintage tea party. On the day, to interact with the audience, there was a number of volunteers and activities to evoke memories that were to be shared with each other. 


The day was solely all about the elderly generation and their memories and stories. We wanted to create a brand experience for the audience by providing them with activities throughout the day that involved their interaction. Memory Boxes (rented from the local museum) and old photographs and memorabilia from the local area was used to stimulate these memories. Museum boxes such as Royalty, Toys and Games, Beach Days were used, as well as photographs of Huddersfield Central. The boxes offered a range of different materials that could be felt, smelt, played with and listened too by the audience and required them to involve themselves with all of it to share their stories with the volunteers and one another. 


By providing the audience with material that they would have played with when they were younger, or even played with their children, once read, or once listened too creates the feeling of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a great way to create consumer involvement and create brand experience due to active immersion that is created. If the audience hold a special attachment to an object or hold memories around it, it will become precious to them and create a warm feeling inside while they discuss their memories with the object. 


To add to the experience of this event, the event provided activities that reached out to the audiences senses; throughout the day background music was being played that was a collection of songs that were from eras that the audience would be familiar with, appealing to their hearing sense. This was done to try and evoke some memories from these songs, for example it would have been their wedding song or even a song that they used to go out dancing with their friends too. Touch and see were both accessed through the memories boxes and photographs that were at the event, as well as the decorations that all followed a vintage theme, could all be interacted with to add to the brand experience.  We also provided the audience with a vintage tea party element of lots of cakes and sandwiches with tea and coffee available. This provided them with a taste element to the day and could all enjoy these tastes and flavours to enhance their experience and make them happy. And finally, to create a friendly and welcoming environment,

each table had a scented candle that were lit before the event and created an aroma in the room that could be smelt when arriving to the room. By creating the event that stimulated all of these senses created a brand experience as it all involved their interaction with each element in hope that it enhanced their experience to be enjoyable, which we hoped the act of giving money to the charity would follow.


The event was successful, we reached our target of raising £50 for Age UK by actually doubling it and making £104 and all the audience gave feedback saying that they thoroughly enjoyed the event and would come to another experience like this again. 



DR. MARTENS X ADVENTURE TIME



 

I recently was on the social media Snapchat browsing everyone’s stories and saw that Dr. Martens were holding a launch campaign in the afternoon at their London store in Carnaby Street, to showcase their new design of the shoes that were Adventure Time themed. 




Dr. Martens have teamed up with Cartoon Network to create a new design for the shoes which involve the characters from the show, Adventure Time. Adventure time is a cartoon that involves the crazy adventures of a human named Finn and his talking dog Jake. The cartoon is very popular between among both children and adults. McDonald’s have also recently teamed up with Cartoon network and are including Adventure time toys in their product, Happy Meals. A couple of the new designs for the Adventure Time range can be seen below; 







I found out about this collaboration through Dr. Martens Snapchat story where they shared photographs of what was happening at their Carnaby Street store to try and appeal their new shoes to a younger audience. Dr. Martens allowed customers to come and meet the characters of Adventure Time and get a photograph, taste some ‘Adventure Time’ candyfloss, and most important come and have a look at the shoes that Dr. Martens made for this cartoon. In the shop there is a section dedicated to these shoes surrounded by bright colours and cardboard cut outs of the characters to attract the customer over (as well as being in the window of the shop to catch the eye of customers passing by). By using these techniques to grab the attention of children (and potentially adults who are fans of the show) they are providing them with an experience with the product to create a relationship with the customer before the product is sold. This brand experience will create a happy customer as they have used an experience that will hopefully create a memory and every time they either see Dr. Marten products of adventure time, they will be reminded of this experience.  





A few weeks before this, Dr. Martens also held a “Dr. Martens X Adventure Time Bounce Mob” where 100 fans stopped by dressing up as Finn the Human (wearing Dr. Martens on their feet as well) hopping down Carnaby Street on Jake the Dog space-hoppers. Which was all done to show off their new range of Adventure Time shoes. It looks a bit mental, and people passing by all tweeted and shared photographs and videos on their social media sharing this experience, which is a great way of free advertisement for Dr. Martens! 


By teaming up with cartoon network it opens up Dr. Martens target audience, as these bright shoes containing cartoon characters will appeal more to younger children, which could have been done due to seeing a gap in their audience and thinking that they need to create a product that will attract more of a younger audience.


In my opinion, I think it is a great way to advertise their new products through creating an experience to attract to the target audience. Maybe Dr. Martens could create a pop–up travelling shop that travels across the UK that brought this experience to places that do not have a Dr. Martens shop so more people are able to hear about these products.