You've only got to attend to one of the major calendar events in your region to see the power of event activations.
With the event season in full swing, and Spring Carnival fever upon us, I find myself reflecting on a recent Melbourne Cup event experience. Yes, I was lucky enough to attend the world-renowned Melbourne Cup Carnival in Flemington.
At the time, it was a newly created activation area called The Park. It was brimming with beautifully clad young men and women cueing to get their photo taken against branded flower walls or riding a top cut-out horses.
Every brand was getting in on the action with Loreal being one of the most impressive. Not only did they have a stunning flower wall to pose against and have your picture emailed directly to you – branded of course, but they also had a team of make-up artists on hand to provide touch-ups throughout the day.
All you had to do was chose from the menu and nominate whether you wanted lips, eyes, nails or hair. After a short time in cue you were chaperoned to a waiting Loreal artist where you were magically transformed – and quietly delighted to have a few minutes to sit after toppling around on high-heels all day.
It was great fun and a great experience. I loved the lipstick that was used on me so much, I took a photo of the colour and have since gone out and purchased it. Experiential marketing works.
It's not just the event experience where brands are winning big. It's also in creating sharable content that attracts a whole new audience. It's relatively easy to do and it's attracting plenty of attention from the people you want to influence the most. There's several ways to create and share the content. Here's just a few.
1) Photos
You can either give your guests a branded photo to take away from the event or you can take a photo and capture their data to have the photo emailed or texted straight through. The photos are usually branded with your company logo and can also be shared on your Facebook page to be shared from there. This is one of the simplest
2) Green Screen
This is the ultimate in immersive theming for your event because of its flexibility. Green screens allow you to create any background for your event – you can theme it, brand it or let your guests choose one of several backgrounds for themselves. There's also Green Screen Photo booths available in digital, print and 3D options.
3) Gif animation
A gif file is simply a short animation piece that is created from taking a series of photos. Gifs are usually intended to be quite humorous and are an easy content option to share and gain immediate traction.
4) Video
Video is always king but can be a little bit more complex and expensive to produce. This approach requires a little bit more pre-planning, and the pre-requisite skills to edit video, or budget to outsource to a video editor but it can be hugely effective. You can also re-purpose your video for other marketing activities.
For more on sponsorship selection, strategy, measuring and management support, visit our website eventsponsors.com.au
