There is a story about the Art Contest and Tour that Mercury Mambo did for our client, Dr Pepper, in the El Paso Times. The tour appeared at local Whataburger restaurants in the city.
The Sabrosura Art Tour is the first to display Dr Pepper and Hispanic art in a mobile forum.
“It’s a great honor to join Dr Pepper in celebrating Hispanic art and culture in a way that gives the artists a new audience and patrons a new appreciation for local talent,” said Todd Coerver, Whataburger’s vice president of Marketing and Innovation”
A new survey just out by the Advertising Research Foundation revealed that “in-person events” can increase purchase intent as high as 52 percent! The study defined “in-person events” as brand-sponsored events including sports championships, walkathons and theme parks. While these “brand experiences” drove purchase intention from 11 percent to 52 percent among consumers, researchers indicated that such purchase intent translated directly to sales about 50% of the time. William Cook, an ARF bigwig, proclaimed in amazement. “We used two research firms and three different analyses and it all ended up at the same place: experiential marketing works,”.
Well, that’s something we’ve known here at Mercury Mambo for quite some time. And we’ll go even one step further and proclaim that our “in-person events” can raise purchase intent to levels in the 60, 70 and even 80 percent ranges as was evident in our recent 2007 Dr Pepper Sampling program targeted to Hispanic consumers in Houston, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Although I don’t have an exact conversion rate, we did see entire pallets of product disappear during the course of a 2-hour event in Los Angeles!
Our secret? We realize that event marketing, unlike any other marketing element, has the power to walk that consumer through the ENTIRE purchase funnel in one encounter. Events can definitely create Awareness, encourage Consideration, reinforce Preference, motivate Purchase and finally instill Retention.
We believe it really goes beyond having the right product with the right message at the right time. Our goal is to extend that experience beyond that one encounter. To make a positive and meaningful impact! And that not only drives purchases, it creates fans.
When it comes to events, it’s all about the people. As part of our business, I go to any and every event, retailtainment or otherwise, that I can. I’ve been to events that cost almost nothing to put on and I’ve been to events that cost millions to put on. Through all the smoke and mirrors, what always makes or breaks an event, or a company’s presence at an event, is the staff.
At the end of the day, all events are about connections and making a positive impact on the audience. When you’re a brand and you’re using an event as a marketing effort, this connection is crucial.
A positive interaction with a brand ambassador can create a long term loyalty. Alternately, a negative interaction is difficult to overcome. Statistically, one negative brand interaction takes 5 positive interactions to counter it.
The million dollar question becomes, how do you ensure the positive interactions only? The answer, you have to hire for it and you have to train for it. There really are no shortcuts.
Here are a couple of tips to hiring great people to work your events:
- Look for personality first. People that love to talk to people, more often than not, make great Brand Ambassadors.
- Balance the personality with a drive to share information. You don’t need folks that will just talk to people, you need folks that will share the benefits of your brand.
If you get the right people to be your Brand Ambassadors and you provide them with the right tools and information to do their job, your event will be a success.
