Not On The High Street: Gift-O-Matic

Another experiential marketing campaign that took place during the Christmas period in 2015 was the “Gift-O-Matic” by Not On The High Street, which was a twitter-powered vending machine. 

Not On The High Street is a website that sells unique handmade gifts, made by small businesses and their goal is to: “to hunt out the most original items from the best creative small businesses, and bring them together in one place, making it easy for people to browse and buy.”

Perfect for last minute shoppers, two of these vending machines were placed in two of London’s busiest train stations, Waterloo and Paddington, on 21^st December.

The machines will interact with the customers by getting them to tweet in the company @notonthehighstreet with their location and a hashtag that perfectly describes the person they are buying the present for, choosing from 5 different personality types such as: #Foodie, #PetLover or #Gardener. 

Customers were then given dispensed a free gift. Inside was a range of gifts that were all prodicts from 5,000 small businesses that are featured on the “Not On The High Street” website. 

The vending machines were reportedly not hard to miss in the busy train stations as they were all brightly coloured with each present dispensed individually gift grabbed, with Not On the High Street bright coloured gift wrap with huge bows covering them. Vision is the most targeted sensory in this campaign as it is using bright colours and oversized material to catch the eye of the consumer gaining their attention. The gift wrap was purposely covered in the company’s name as a reminder for the consumer where the gift came from with details of the company website. So in the future the consumer can access this website again. Which is spreading the word of this company through suppling consumers with free gifts to get a taster of products are on website.

Not On The High Street’s aims of this campaign were to attract new customers and giving them, and existing customers, a new surprise for them and a delight at Christmas, whilst trying to give them some ease to their Christmas Shopping (especially those who had left it to the last minute). By getting the customers to tweet in it is spreading the word about Not On The High Street, expanding their market, by getting their customers to actually spread the word for them. 

The machines were said to be attracting attention from the moment they were opened and were a great way to spread Christmas cheer, as well as getting the name of the company Not On The High Street spread around. The company supports small businesses so each of the gifts given were unique and can all be found on the company’s website, the idea behind this way to avoid panic buying and to give a present that was thoughtful. In hope that in the following years, the customers remember this website and use it.  

Cadbury

Cadbury’s Advent Calendar 

There was a lot of discussion around Cardbury releasing their sales pitch for the Christmas period, as it was argued that it was bigger and better than Coca-Cola’s. Cadbury’s of course “has a well-loved place in families homes over the Christmas period” so to create an experience for their customers this Christmas they reportedly spent over £10 million on this campaign to enhance their brand and bring happiness to their consumers. Which was shared as “Cadbury’s biggest ever advent calendar. 24 trucks. 24 doors. Opening daily in 24 different locations. Bringing joyful festive surprises to the nation on the countdown to Christmas. #cadvent”

On November 7^th Cardbury released their Christmas advert which showed what their sales pitch for Christmas 2015 was going to be. It showed 24 different Lorries being packed filled with chocolate and Christmas magic, each with a huge gold number ranging from 1-24 on the exterior. Each lorry was to be seen as a different “door” of an advent calendar, linking to one of their products that they produce each year, the chocolate countdown advent calendar. Starting on December 1^st right up until December 24^th a lorry would be sent out from Cadbury HQ each day to 24 different locations across the UK, the contents inside were a surprise each day for each location. 

Cadbury’s is wanting to enhance its brand by taking part in this new marketing pitch, they are wanting consumers to see that their product is more than a want in life, it is a need. In hope that they change consumers to buying their products to more of habitual decision, where consumers do not think about other options, it is an unconscious decision to buy this product. 

To successfully do this Cadbury’s needed to produce a campaign that would tap in to the desires of the public and create motivation for them to take part in an activity in return for a sort of ‘reward’ that, of course, was a taster of their chocolate. So by producing these 24 lorries that go out to different locations across the UK is a way of doing this, in hope that the consumers will change their opinion of the company’s product, in this case chocolate, being a need instead of a want, a dream that all consumer company’s want of their products. 

One of the campaigns that took place was on 2^nd December in Bath, which you can see below. 

In this campaign it got the public to take a picture in a spotlight underneath some mistletoe sharing a kiss with a loved one, in order to share the Christmas love and spirit around, but most importantly for the company, to receive a free gift from Cadbury, which was some chocolate.  By doing this it taps in to the desires of the public and creates motivation for them to take part in this activity, which involves little risk with it so it will encourage more people to get involved. 

By creating something like the kiss-o-gram sort of activity in Bath, they are providing a platform that will create a positive atmosphere, in hope that it lasts in the audiences’ mind to enhance the brand image and create these positive connections. You are also reminded to share your photograph that is taken on to all your social media sites with the hashtag movement of #cadvent.

Other lorry doors saw an edible Santa Grotto, a huge cracker, create a bauble to put on a Christmas tree, music performances and flash mobs, all accompanied by chocolate! By giving this free chocolate it will give a taste to new and old consumers, reminding or an opportunity for people to try this chocolate and see how it tastes, in hope that they go out and buy some more in return. 

Did you see either of the Coca Cola Truck or Cadbury’s campaign this Christmas? If so, which one did you think was better?

#IfCarlsbergDid

 

#IfCarlsbergDidChristmasTrees

Following on from a previous post about “Possibly the best poster in the World” that Carlsberg did back in April 2015 this blog is another example of experiential marketing that this brand has invested in. 

This campaign also contributes to their series of #IfCarlsbergDid to continue new methods of promoting their brand by engaging consumers in new and different ways, and their most current activity is the “If Carlsberg did Christmas trees” which has had positive feedback. (You can see the campaign video at the end of this post). Christmas is all about getting together with family and friends and enjoying eachothers company, with festive food and drink, so Carlsberg took this opportunity to use this festive season as a good time to market their brand, in hope that consumers would go out and buy some for this holiday!

Carlsberg erected a 27ft Christmas tree in South Bank, London around Christmas time which was covered in Carlsberg “Beerbles” and bottles of Carlsberg. Members of the public (over 18s only) were able to line up and get complimentary Carlsberg, with the first 100 visitors receiving a free limited edition “Beerble” to drink out off. 

Again, similar to the campaign of “Possibly the best poster in the World”, it engages consumers with the taste and visual sensory elements. The audience are able to sample the product as well as being able to see promoting materials such as products they sell hanging from the tree.  

The consumer involvement doesn’t just stop at this event, it opened up the event on to the internet as well. Where audience via the internet were able to take part in a competition with Carlsberg where they had to count how many bottles they could see on the tree to win, which is creating a platform for consumers who weren’t able to attend can still engage with the brand and this brand enhancement idea can travel further. 

By engaging the audience with this experience to test their product could potentially open up a new market of consumers and it has very little monetary risk as it is totally free to try! This leads to reduced functional risk when the consumer is going to be purchasing this product, they have already sampled this product so they know what they are going to be getting for their money, which may influence their decision making. 

So overall, why wouldn’t you want to go along and experience this? 

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                                         >