Birth of a Brand?

Beer is king! A huge growth in the sales of imported lagers and beers as well as the output of microbrewers has meant great change for the license trade.

Whilst big names such as Carling and Fosters dominate the pumps of bars up and down the country, the continental beer invasion has been swift and grows daily. When Heineken acquired Scottish and Newcastle - The UK’s largest independent brewer, the continental Beer invasion was absolute.

The economic downturn has seen a significant move from the cocktail culture of previously prosperous years; craft brews have been the order of the day, and not just with male drinkers. The growing army of female drinkers have noticed the trend too; and some of the beers in the market such as Molson Coors’ Kasteel Cru - Champagne yeast brewed Alsatian lager, with its Rose and Blanc variant has proved a massive seller with the Female consumer. Fruit Beers from Liefmans, Timmermans and Fruli have seen females drive sales of beer rocket over the typical tipples for females, such as wine and cocktails.

Aiming for a timeless USP for a bar is almost impossible; theme bars by their very nature have a limited lifespan. So creating something that had longevity, had sufficient USP’s to make it attractive in a crowded market place and have broad appeal would need a lot of thought.

With the supermarkets using alcohol as loss leaders increasingly widespread, the publican has to try hard to attract customers away from their cheap alcohol, large format flat screen TV’s and heated Patios! So why would a consumer step out of his or her own drinking and leisure palace to drink elsewhere, paying perceptible premium for the pleasure?

We needed a Brand that would stand up in any town, convey immediately what the offering was and be a good blend of the timeless and the contemporary - a tall order in anyone’s book.

So with a background of increased consumer growth in the Continental Beer and World Beer Markets it seemed sensible to focus the new concept in this area. Taking an idea I first formulated some 4 years ago, inspired by the Beer Halle’s of Glasgow and from a trip to Germany, I re-addressed the concept for the 21st Century.

The drinking ‘experience’ itself had to have something special attached, many of the continental beers had their own branded glassware, designed to enhance the drinking experience. We would go one better, we would introduce the largest of all drinking vessels, the Mas or STEIN, the 1ltr (2Pint in the UK) branded drinking pot.

Many of the classic Brands we still enjoy today were born in the early part of the 20th Century, such as coca Cola, Cadbury, Ford.

From the font, design copybooks of the early 20th century came the idea for a simple Iconic idea, which would translate, into a perennial brand. Our offering would be 70+ Beers from the continent and around the world, Live Music performed on a branded stage, handmade branded Beer enhanced Pies and that Oktoberfest favourite Roast Chicken.

So one very wintery night in the Historic Quayside Area of Newcastle upon Tyne, STEIN Bier Keller™ was born.

Defining Experiential Marketing

For many months now 'Experiential' has increasingly been THE buzz word in professional marketing circles. With so much net chatter and seemingly everyone being an 'expert' in what is probably the most dynamic and rewarding area of the marketing to present itself for a long time.So, what is Experiential marketing? What is all the fuss about? Does it really have any true value in these tough economic times?

After scouring the net, a multitude of blogs and too many industry forums; I have written my own. The challenge with anything exciting and new, is that words become jargon and misappropriated to describe activity which Experiential Marketing really is not; such as sampling or Brand Theatre - both of which can take place as part of Experiential Marketing activity, but on their own are simply what they are.

Taking a good look across the Marketing service providers and full service agencies, there are actually only a handful of true Experiential Marketing specialists (niche professionals) and only a similar amount of full service agencies with true experiential departments or skilled providers within them.

Definition: 

Experiential Marketing is a directed, engaging, creative interaction between a product or service and consumer. With the purpose of enhancing, driving or directing the perception of the product or service and the objective of increasing sales or adding perceptible value to the product or service.

Maintaining creative edge in the full service agency environment, especially during recession induced budget contractions, becomes key to both the survival and development of market share, not just for the clients but for the agencies themselves. Some, but not all of the key London agencies have responded over the last few years by developing their Experiential divisions, with now the most sought after creative talents, in recruitment terms for full service agencies being Experiential.

Understanding Experiential marketing, and acquiring those skills for the successful agencies of the future will be key success factors in the coming months and years. Our clients have always wanted differential but now they need it more than ever, the absolute need to maintain or develop market share is the key driver today. The direct creative interaction between their product or service and there customer is what will drive their success and in turn, the successful Agencies. They need experiential marketing.

Delivering Experiential marketing activity, balancing the correct skill sets, combining: Creative, Production, Event Management and of course have the ability to pitch and sell experiential to clients is a challenge in itself, but possible for those agencies who look closely and choose wisely.

So when someone is buzzing the word Experiential, look and listen closely to what they are saying, because it will always be the doing that will matter, Experiential after all needs to be felt to be understood.

The ART of measuring Experiential

How do we measure Experiential activity? How do we judge its success in meaningful ways? And what are the metrics we can employ and how best do we interpret them?

When a marketing strategy for a brand is decided, and an Experiential activity is agreed as the solution, in part or whole to a marketing challenge; then a clear objective for the activity must be set. Without one, it is activity for activities sake, and will offer little more than ambient placement, or be simply 'Brand Theatre'.

The objective, or series of goals set out for the activity at the outset will be inform the metrics for measuring success or Return On Investment ( ROI) for the activity.

The Key Step Metrics (KSM) I use for measuring experiential activity are:

ACTIVITY - How did it engage?
RELEVANT - Why did the activity connect with the audience, was it in the way planned?
TARGET - Who were your audience, was it the target audience for the activity?

Experiential is an ART, and the science of it and understanding best how to measure it will come from understanding firstly why you chose to pursue an Experiential activity in the first instance - over more traditional Marketing. What is it you want to achieve?

CASE STUDY:
A leading detergent brand is looking to launch a new format for its leading brand, and the Brand team have decided the best way to demonstrate the brands effectiveness is to engage with their audience through experiential activity.

So, the team would work as follows

ACTIVITY: High street and Major shopping centre, washing machines set up and customers invited to dirty garments and witness these items being cleaned, with data collection and sampling.

RELEVANT: To connect with target groups, for them to experience the brand, and witness the power and effectiveness of the brand in action in the new easy to use format

TARGET: 5000 Young Mums and Single people 18-35 who are short on time and looking for fast wash results.

At the close of the activity - again look at the ART of the activity and from that you will be able to measure the success

I am sure you will agree, Experiential Marketing is an ART.

All you need is LOVE!

Love is one of the strongest human emotions, it ‘conquers all’, is all encompassing, its irrational and cannot be completely described or replicated artificially. How do we love? We love through experience, by having an experience or series of experiences, which develop into love, or are just love. Love is a feeling, a perception, a positive energy.

In marketing terms, we dream of being able to develop the kind of Brand Loyalty that ‘Product’ Love would bring, field marketing, Direct Marketing, Print, TV, New Media, all these routes have their pluses, but none engenders love, for that you need to have experience.

Experiential Marketing is about the customer, it is about how they feel - their reactions and having their own unique experience to your product or brand, on for that you need to engage your customer with a platform, which allows the customer to feel.

A bottle of Rum is a bottle of Rum, but made as a cocktail, served in a unique environment, with music and a situation (created with your brand values in mind), will give the customer not just Rum, but an experience, which they attach your brand. When they want the same feeling, to extend the experience they will reach for that Rum – try to re-create the same experience or more broadly -make their own experience from it.

Bacardi Martini (UK) celebrate 12 years of the B-Bar this year , their hugely successful festival and club B-Bar experience and latterly B-Live. BACARDI took their bottle of Rum (Bacardi) and made it an experience, and 10 years on we still LOVE IT!

I worked on many early B-Bar events, providing everything from Event Management, Bar Mixologists to Event Production, back in the late 90’s and early part of the Millennium - and I still love the brand.

Experiential diversity - broad strokes for lots of folks...

Getting to grips with your clients Brand Ambitions is essential for you to produce successful and meaningful results for your clients brand. Here is a selection of just some of the diverse range of experiential activity I have been proud to devise, produce and deliver - a big thank you to the various teams who have helped me deliver Northern Tzar's vision for the huge range of clients...

The importance of Brand Collateral...

In the world of events its essential to present as much Brand collateral to the brands involved with the event. If you present a broad and dynamic purse of material to your brands you will enhance not only your reputation with those brands, but you will mark yourself out as someone worth taking seriously.

In today's climate, budgets are tight, and the funding for events and experiential activity is at a premium. However, if you are smart enough to attract the funding, make sure you give a quality return on their investment.

A few hundred pounds spent on a video of the event, will be a sound investment - and offer your brand partners a solid piece of material with which to judge you, your event and the success of the investment. When your brand partners are looking for opportunities in the future , they will be more interested in what you have to offer, and will have a better picture of your capabilities.

Check out the video's here for NARC Magazine's 3rd Birthday event in April 2009, with (MOLSON COORS) Carling and Global Brands' Goldschlager headlining support; And to contrast, check out the Beverage Brand's WKD Halloween Street Party I produced in winter 2007 ...