Do you want to raise your company’s profile and reach out to more of the right customers? These brand activation ideas can help you interact with your target audience in genuine ways that will help your company move the needle.
You’re always seeking new methods to spread your brand’s message, goods, and services as a business owner or marketing expert.
Regrettably, this isn’t always simple. How can your firm ever break through when there’s so much noise on the internet and competitors vying for market share?
It appears that you will need to spend money on a brand activation campaign. This article will define “brand activation” and provide ideas on how to better engage with customers.
What is a Brand Activation?
In the marketing industry, brand activation is a relatively new concept that has gained popularity in recent years. It’s an important part of any multi-touch event marketing strategy.
Essentially, brand activation is the practice of increasing a company’s recognition through connecting directly with target people. This may be accomplished through a variety of event formats or marketing initiatives, as long as the effort results in a unique customer experience that enhances a company’s reputation.
This term may appear wide since brand activation may occur in a variety of ways. The rest of this blog article will look at ideas and case studies that you may utilize to raise exposure for your business.
Why Is Brand Activation Important?
Assume your business was freshly launched yesterday. Your target audience is familiar with you, but they are unfamiliar with your brand, and those who are aware of it have no meaningful relationship to it. You must create a splash to get your brand off the ground. we need to get people interested in what you’re doing. You must give your audience a cause to be enthusiastic about your business. In a nutshell, you must activate your brand.
Company activations, according to HubSpot, are one-time, in-person events, experiences, and encounters that help a brand and its target audience form enduring emotional bonds.
A brand activation will bring your brand to life, attract new audiences, and change the way your current audience sees you. And, with the appropriate strategy, brand activations can be extremely powerful – after attending an activation, 98 percent of customers are more likely to purchase a company’s products.
Types Of Brand Activation
True, brand activation needs a significant amount of planning, possibly even more than a conventional marketing activation campaign or event. The good news is that modern marketers with a desire to engage their brand may choose from a wide range of possibilities.
Let’s take a look at some of the most effective marketing and brand activation tactics available right now.
Experiential marketing
Experiential marketing, also known as engagement marketing, is a type of activation strategy in which a company provides an immersive, real-world experience to interact with its target audience. These encounters aren’t limited to a brand’s specific products; they also include a brand’s values and the messages it wants to convey to its target audience.
Let’s imagine you’re promoting a picture editing program and want to use experiential marketing to sell it. You set up a pop-up photo booth where individuals may shoot photos with their friends and then receive stylistic edits to take home.
While offering an entertaining and engaging experience for your audience, this campaign raises brand recognition and stimulates interest in your goods.
The majority of experiential marketing efforts include live involvement, which is frequently part of a bigger event or concert. Virtual and augmented reality technology, on the other hand, have made digital experience marketing possible. Your audience may connect with your brand from the comfort of their own homes through virtual tours, games, and interactive content.
Samples and free trial campaigns
One of the most tried-and-true methods of brand activation is a sample campaign. The objective is simple: you give individuals the opportunity to test a product for free in the hopes that they will enjoy it and want to purchase it or comparable products from your company.
It’s important to remember that there’s a proper method and a bad way to run a sample campaign. Consider how many times you’ve fought an overzealous shopping mall seller who tried to shove a complimentary energy drink, food, or strange trinket into your hands. It’s not nice, and it doesn’t make you want to check out or even remember the brand.
Choose your surroundings carefully rather than approaching people in less-than-ideal situations. Consider upcoming events that your target demographic is likely to attend if you want to do an in-person sample campaign.
Fortunately, digitally orchestrating a sample campaign is considerably simple. Simply compile a list of consumer addresses and give them a sample of one of your products as a surprise. Include a note requesting that the receiver post a photo of the free sample on social media. You may also create an email campaign giving a free trial of your product if your firm provides intangible things like software and technical solutions.
In-store brand activation
The goal of brand activation is to create strong bonds between your brand and your target audience. There’s no better place for a brand activation than a company’s headquarters, of course.
Retailers and other B2C brands use this strategy the most. They hold events at their stores, providing amenities such as food and drink and allowing their customers to view and try things in person. People should, in theory, walk away from the experience with a renewed respect for these businesses and how they handle their consumers.
However, B2B firms use this type of brand activation less frequently. We can see why: workstations and cubicles don’t have the same allure as a physical store.
A company office, on the other hand, might be rich ground for an on-site activation. For example, to celebrate the start of summer, you may invite your target audience to a picnic outside your workplace. Customers may connect directly with the individuals that manufacture, advertise, and sell your products while enjoying their complimentary hot dogs and hamburgers.
Industry events and trade shows
Finally, trade fairs and industry events offer several opportunities to engage your brand. Whether you hire a branded booth on the trade show floor or give a live seminar or presentation, these events help you build brand authority and reach new audiences. In addition, an industry event is an ideal location for experimenting with additional brand activation strategies such as experiential marketing and sample handouts.
We’ve already covered a lot of event marketing pointers, so let’s move on.
Ideas to Activate Your Brand
Promote Unique Customer Experiences – Contours
Making it unique, something your audience hasn’t seen or done before is one of the keys to establishing a fantastic customer experience. A great example is Contours’ Baby Stroller Test Ride. Parents may ride in adult-sized strollers to get a firsthand look at the company’s product quality. How many adults can say they’ve recently taken a stroll with a stroller? There aren’t many, which makes this campaign unique.
Encourage Customer Promotion – Sonic
We live in a world dominated by social media. You aren’t interacting with your audience as well as you may be if they aren’t talking about your brand on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Simply encouraging your audience to post about your company can sometimes be the most effective approach to drive social buzz. Sonic did just that for a Coachella music festival experiential marketing campaign. The fast-food company provided concertgoers square-shaped shakes that were perfectly suited for Instagram images and could only purchase through the photo-sharing website.
Solve Customer Problems – Vitaminwater
When it comes down to it, why do people buy things? It does so because it solves a problem. Provide answers to your audience’s problems to generate exposure for your brand. However, By constructing a human vehicle wash, Vitaminwater skillfully incorporated this method into their WayHome Music Festival event plan. What is the most common issue that every summer festival-goer faces? The oppressive heat.
Vitaminwater solved the problem while also advertising its brand by building a fun misting station.
Give Your Audience What They Want – Durango Boots
Durango Boots understands its target market: proud cowboys and cowgirls. They also recognize that most of their target population would enjoy a ride on El Diablo the mechanical bull. As a result, they just put up the bull and let the festival-goers ride it to their hearts’ pleasure. Brand activation does not have to be difficult. All you have to do is figure out who your audience is and offer them what they want.
Capitalize on Specific Trends – Innocent Drinks
Innocent Drinks opened a popup bar with just one method to order: upload a picture on social media and tag it with the brand’s distinctive emoji hashtag. It was one of the most inventive brand activation instances on our list. Innocent was able to attract millennial clients to its tiki-themed “Coconut Watering Hole” and market their beverages by capitalizing on the emoji fad.
Make Learning About Your Company’s History Fun – Bloomingdale’s
But, It’s crucial to know your company’s history, including where, why, and how your brand began. It can help customers connect with your company’s beliefs and establish trust with them. Bloomingdale’s, on the other hand, devised an interactive scavenger hunt rather than simply conveying their narrative to their audience. While completing enjoyable chores, attendees learned about the store’s unique heritage. Many images taken during the event were also shared on social media, providing Bloomingdale’s further exposure.
Make Your Event Exclusive – Radius
Radius is well-versed in B2B event marketing. They hold an executive dinner in New York City regularly to educate participants on B2B revenue development, networking, and the buyer’s journey. While having an exclusive event or experience will exclude a segment of your audience, your firm will form a deep link with that just have been invited, and they will be far more inclined to spread the news about your company.
Make Use of Technology – Ready Player One
Marketing activation has never been easier thanks to technological advancements. Ready Player One’s marketing team employed virtual reality to engage moviegoers in a virtual treasure hunt game. How can your business interact with customers using technology? Your brand activation efforts might be considerably aided by just employing tools like event software.
Partner with Influencers – Starbucks
Starbucks established a pop-up “Sparkle Shop” in Toronto to advertise their new range of Teavana teas, and worked with glitter-obsessed YouTuber LaurDIY to advertise it. Influencer marketing has risen in popularity in recent years and, when done correctly, may boost event ROI. However, Look for someone who has a similar audience to yours. Then come up with a mutually beneficial agreement.
Shock Your Audience – Lipton Iced Tea
Do you want to make your brand more visible and memorable? Put up a large, bright yellow water slide in the heart of London, in full view of morning commuters. Lipton Iced Tea accomplished this. Lipton gave away free samples of their goods and encouraged people to #BeADaybreaker as curious bystanders gathered to see what all the fuss was about. I mean, isn’t it amazing?
Demonstrate New Product Features – Apple
Is this a new product? What about repurposing an existing product with new features? In any case, now is the moment to take advantage of these changes and engage your brand. But The “One Night on iPhone 7” commercial by Apple is an excellent example. The tech titan asked photographers from all around the world to create photographs on their new iPhones to highlight the device’s new low-light camera abilities for the worldwide event. The result was a gorgeous collection of photos that confidently demonstrated the iPhone’s better camera.
Building a successful brand is a long and complex process. Don’t expect a single campaign or event to instantaneously quadruple your audience or convert your brand into an overnight sensation.
However, when used in conjunction with your existing branding efforts, brand activations may give you the extra push you need. They may help you gain more visibility, endear your brand to your audience, and redefine how your consumers think about your organization and products.
Contact Nummero now for more information on how we can help you establish your brand. We’re a top contact database with all of the tools you’ll need to scale your marketing operations and expand your company.
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