Many brands include increasing brand awareness as a goal for their marketing strategies, and they look to brand activations to achieve it. This makes sense — activations are designed to do exactly that, with studies showing that more than 90% of consumers say they’d be more likely to buy a brand’s product or service after attending an activation or other experience; 40% of those who have say the experience made them feel more loyal to the brand. — but awareness is hard to define, let alone measure. How can you ensure the best possible return on your brand’s activation investment?
Look for successful activation strategies that engage target audiences and build lasting relationships. These strategies focus on the audience’s perspective, and on creating a brand presence that’s experiential, authentic, informative, context-relevant, and impossible to ignore. Here are some of the ways brands and activation agencies create memorable activations, and why they translate into brand recognition and awareness, along with some experiential marketing examples of activations driven by brand awareness.
Creating First-Hand Experiences
Strategy: Even if your audience has already heard of your brand, they might not have experienced it for themselves. A brand activation is a free, low-stakes way for consumers to check out a new-to-them product and get to know the brand.
A next-level brand activation that’s experiential, incorporating sampling, demonstrations, games, interactive displays, and other high-energy brand-to-consumer contact offers myriad opportunities to build positive associations.
Benefit: Immersive activations draw participants into your brand’s world, creating a memorable experience that will stick with them. Experiential activations that appeal to attendees on multiple levels help form positive memories that tie back to your brand.
Joining in the Fun
Strategy: Brands often sponsor local kids’ baseball teams, charities, and festivals — write a check, get your logo on a banner or T-shirt — and while that’s still a viable option, brands are finding that showing up makes a bigger impression with today’s consumers, who want to connect personally with brands. Sponsorship activations achieve that by linking your brand to a local event or organization with an in-person presence right in the middle of the fun.
Brands might give away event-relevant products or services at the event. For example, it’s not uncommon to see local gyms and massage therapists offering free-of-charge stretches or massages to marathon runners. At a summertime festival, branded “cooling stations” offer shade, fans, and cool mist along with information about the brand, free samples, or coupons. Having multiple staff members or a street team on hand to reach out to passers-by or fan out across the event space broadens the activation’s reach.
Benefit: Beyond getting your logo on event signage, say event marketing companies, sponsorship associates your brand with the event itself, giving your brand a PR boost and demonstrating your connection to the cause or community the event represents. With some studies showing three-quarters of consumers putting more trust in brands after interacting with them at an event, it’s hard to debate the brand awareness value of sponsorship.
Finding Shoppers in Their Natural Habitat
Strategy: Positioning your brand’s activation in a shopping mall might seem so 1990s, but top-tier malls are thriving post-pandemic, making mall activations a great way to build awareness. There are many reasons for this: Malls are often shielded from the elements, making them a viable option year-round. They also draw diverse audiences, opening up your brand to people who’ve never “met” you before.
Benefit: The real brand awareness magic is in the context: Malls are full of shoppers. People walking through a shopping mall are primed to spend money and time. Popup shops, coffee carts, demonstrations, guerrilla marketing, sampling, street teams, and interactive elements increase the appeal and impact of your brand’s mall presence and draw the attention of passers-by.
Making It Immersive — and Social-Media Ready
Strategy: Today’s consumers crave connection with brands, and experiential marketing is particularly adept at creating it. Think of immersive marketing as experiential-plus: rather than merely showing attendees something they’ve never seen before, immersive marketing takes them somewhere they’ve never been before — to a mini-universe defined entirely by your brand. Consumers get to learn not only about products or services but also about who your brand really is: its values, aesthetics, and personality. Consider Axe Body Spray’s “Chillmobile,” a bus remodeled to offer a barber shop,a video gaming lounge, and Instagram-ready photo ops. The mobile activation spent a year traveling to U.S. high schools, resulting in over half a million impressions and distributing 400,000 product samples to a quarter-million high schoolers.
Benefit: Immersive marketing is memorable. The themed world built around a brand is designed to surprise and delight, taking attendees to a place they’ve never been. And like all eager and excited tourists, they’ll want to share the experience with family, friends, and followers. Immersive marketing is camera-ready and perfect for sharing across social media platforms, inspiring user-generated content that spreads awareness of and curiosity about your brand.
Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing firm based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Want to discuss your next project? Reach out below.
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