Experiential Marketing: A Review

This assignment delves into the concept of experiential marketing, exploring its various theories and practical applications. It highlights how experiential campaigns and events contribute to building strong customer connections and enhancing brand image. The report emphasizes the importance of experiential marketing in fostering long-term relationships between brands and their target audience.

Individual critical essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. A critical review of experiential theory and its applications for marketing communications 1
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
2. Experiential marketing strategy for consumer brand engagement and connection between
events and design of its activities................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
A critical essay is generally concern with a review in which includes writing tasks that
helps in understanding through specific summary or evaluations of text. In other words, essay
includes various procedures such as evaluating information, situations or various theories which
support an individual in developing his knowledge. It is an important way to analyse several
information as well as posing some questions so that they can find appropriate answers. A
critical essay requires in-depth analysis rather than any personal opinion. This report is based on
some review of critical such as experiment of marketing theories in the context of
communication. It will describe strategies for creating consumer brand engagement as well as
connections in between events and the design of marketing activities. It will help in analysing
various information for better understanding of this critical essay.
TASK
Companies face various kinds of challenges regarding effective or efficient marketing
communication across the globe. It is necessary for surviving in the competitive world as well as
in environment. This term is not only for product differentiation but also for marketing of an
organisation. It is very important for every and each firm that to have strong brand image among
customers.
Experiential marketing:
It is an important marketing tool that helps in building long term relationship among
customers. Experiential marketing is a strategy that directly engage with people and influence
their behaviour as well as encourage them for participating in the evolution of a particular brand
and experience of it. Every firm or marketer wants that consumers should be active or motivated
to get involved in the production as well as in co-creation of various marketing activities and
programs for the purpose of developing relationship with a brand and consumers.
According to Algar, 2015 Experiential marketing is the live in which includes one to one
interactions among customers so that they can create a strong connections with brands. On the
other side, consumer engagement is defined as a connection when a brand and a consumer
connect with each other.
Experiential marketing is growing fast as it is in latest trend in which various companies
are promoting or marketing their products or services for consumer engagement so that they can
create emotional attachment regarding company's brand. They generally use physical as well as
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interactive experience for reinforcing the offers of organisational products and make customers
feel that they are a part of company. It is related with positive experience of customers like their
attitudes, behaviours and mood. Therefore, it is necessary for every organisation to be engaged,
compelled and able to touch people's sense as well as capture their loyalty for achieving success
and competitive advantages.
Wahhabism, 2015 said that “experiential marketing is what people really desire are not
product, but satisfying experience”. Experiences generally gained through various activities
which is required some physical as well as visible object for the services. People wants particular
products and services in the exchange of money so that they can experience better for their
maximum satisfaction. According to Kenyon, 2014 as he added the dimension of uniqueness
which helps in understanding that experience involved a progressions over time as well as the
involvement and uniqueness which made the activity stand out from the ordinary.
Definition of Experiential Marketing:
Experiential marketing can be understood by various ways as this term was first used by
Schmitt in the year 1999 who analysed that it is beneficial for every business firm because it
focuses on customer’s experience. The Beaulac, 2014 stated about experiential marketing that
“Experiences occur as a result of several factors such as encountering, undergoing as well as
living through things because it provides sensory, emotional, behavioural and the value of
relations that replace the functional values”.
In other words, experiential marketing is an experience as well as memorable memory
which generally goes deeply into customer's mind. It is related with event marketing for the
purpose of building a strong market image of a particular organisation and also supports in
making healthy relations among people. According to Brown, 2014 “Event marketing is
considered as an interactive communication in the market or target customers regarding brand
value through stag of marketing events as 3 dimensional brand related hyperrealistic in which
consumers are actively involving on a level of behavioural which would support in their
emotional attachments regarding particular brand”.
The fact of actual experience regarding products and services is not about any unique
things or new point of view but it is related with increasing interest in the role of experience in
marketing. It is based on the notable contribution of Au, 2014 in experiential marketing
literatures, numerous articles or studies which usually deals with the emotional and sensory
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dimensional of marketing now addressed the implications regarding consumers purchasing as
well as consumption behaviour.
Experience was enabled as the private intangible events which generally occurred in responses to
some stimulations and it is directly related with observations and participations in the events.
Cabantous, 2016 provided some brief descriptions of the five types of customers experiences
which is based on Experiential Marketing Framework. In the words, customers experience
defined as the value of something that helps in involving the impression and sense of the user, so
they actually feels directly as well as impressed when coming into contact with a company and a
brand.
Experiential Marketing Theories:
Experiential learning:- In this defined as according to Diekmann, 2018 that learning is
the procedures where knowledge is usually created through transformations of experience. He
stated that a effective learning have a concrete experience regarding particular goods and
services and any other. As life is full of various experiences so that individual can learn from
anywhere whether it is home, workplace and many more. By using experiential marketing,
brands can become active to initiate these cycle because it is important f[or creating a truly
memorable experience which will support in making positive impressions of company's brand in
the consumer's mind.
Reciprocity: In this elaborate that experiential marketers always be conscious about
providing the more value to the customers. It is not related with sales, but the true value comes
later in the chain for the marketers, so it is beneficial for the company to make good positions
among consumer's mind.
Framing effects: It is depends on the situations whether it perceive as loss or a gain.
According to Hodgson, 2017 it is necessary to be explicit regarding customers as what they stand
to gain while engaging with company's products and experience.
Conformity and social influence/ social proof: In this regards, experiential marketing
support satisfying customers through industry influencer, testimonials and event tech for
example a wall of tweet that shows the social engagement about campaign.
Buffer effects of social support: In this, company ensure about their experiences that
consumers should be in contact as it can be possible through right hiring of staff and the role. For
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this purpose, brand ambassadors should be related with demographic of target audience for
ensuring that they set the consumers at ease.
Experiential marketing applications:
Experiential marketing is types of strategy in which audience engages with real life
invitation for engaging with particular company's products and services or experience regarding
brand and what it makes as well as represents. It may be participatory, hands on and tangible.
There are some experiential marketing campaigns such as:
Google, “Building a better bay area”: In such kinds of events, google allowed people for
casting their votes online regarding their particular services, but they also wants to involve the
bay areas community in tangible way. Therefore, they use strategies for installing large and
interactive posters at various places such as bus shelters, food trucks and restaurants.
Guinness: In this defines that marketing of brands which fall into the upper right
quadrant such as luxury cars and private jets. For example, private jets which set apart the
Guinness class experience. At that time, ambassadors dressed in Guinness branded flight that
attendant uniforms entered bars across the UK. Where they were surprising to unsuspecting
customers with a chance of win several kinds of prizes.
Task 2
2. Experiential marketing strategy for consumer brand engagement and connection between
events and design of its activities
Experiential marketing
Experiences are conceal, abstract events that occur to some stimulation. It can be
observed or participative. With same properties, experiential marketing came into existence
where a marketing strategy is developed that focuses mainly upon consumers to undergo and
experience a brand. It is about engaging a consumer into a experience of product or service
without actually purchasing. It helps to create experiences and emotions to the customers.
According to Levy, 2015 “allows customers to engage and interact with brands, products and
services in sensory ways.”
The framework of experiential marketing for strategy has following two aspects:
Customer experiences
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Here, customer actually feels company's products, services, brands, that rouse and attract him,
when contacted directly or indirectly. It gives innate value to experience from user's point-of-
view. Aim for customer experience is to have characteristics and response of consumptions that
maybe on positive or negative side. Marketing strategy has classified experience values into five
modules:
 Sense marketing- it attracts and please senses.
 Feel marketing- it constitutes inner feelings and emotions and has a range from mild
preference to strong agreement.
 Think marketing-it deals with intellect property where awareness and perception of
consumer is created. It develops inducement and fascination.
 Act marketing- it deals with physical experiences
 Relate marketing- it deals with perceiving self realization of an individual.
The example of the Elon Musk rocket launch, is a specific case of experiential marketing. As,
Space X successfully launched its first Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket. On course
towards Mars, Tesla Roadsters was launched too. This experiment has led to more cheaper and
frequent space flight which will encourage government and businesses to easily launch huge
space projects and carry out successful space missions. It is a new advancement in technology as
we can see a car orbiting around the earth with a dummy astronaut in it. Here, experience is more
realistic and relatable with real life. People are observing the accomplishment and reacting about
low cost space travel with reusable resources.
Service experiences
According to Reardon, 2015 “Customers always have an experience- good, bad or indifferent-
whenever they purchase a product or service from a company. The key was how effectively the
company managed the experience.” A product is a tangible whereas a service is a intangible
aspect. Service is more about staff-customer interaction that speaks the moment of truth and
service experience is about customer's opinion of support they have received from a company.
To strengthen experiential marketing following elements are to be considered:
 Trust builds emotional connection between customer and product/service. Advantage of
trust is it builds customer loyalty and results in customer satisfaction
 Convenience shows how conveniently a customer is able to access the desired product or
service
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 Value-in-use means customer as a user creates a value for the product. It is developed in
the phase of experience which helps to decide purchasing.
 Satisfaction and commitment leads to customer loyalty and make repurchasing very
frequent.
 Loyalty has two dimensions to react upon, behavioural (purchasing frequency, quantity
and quality) and attitudinal (more intrinsic and perceptive).
Use of experiential marketing is still in debate. Most of brands use it to stand out in
field/event or to enhance their advertising campaign. Coca cola conducted experiential marketing
where participants took role of Double O agent (bond movie) and had to run through stations.
After purchasing a drink from vending machine, participants were challenged to reach another
station by crossing hurdles. The prize was free tickets for sky-fall, newest Bond film. This made
every participant to have Bond like experience for lifetime.
Designing Experiential marketing events:
it is based on brand management theory that helps in analysing about the brands
attachments and the association aids to create the brand resonance which get the results in turn
generate as well as involvement with particular brand through increasing equity and loyalty of
brand. Experiential marketing is very useful for creating effective image among customers and
competitors because it build the strong relations in people's mind regarding products or services
of a organisation. In this explained that any imaginary and feelings are related with tangibles
aspects including personal experience, word of mouth, advertisement and history of particular
brand. These are very effective in generating positive brand equity.
Experiential marketing, grow consumer engagements, grow the brand:
According to Snauwaert, 2015 Give the chances to customers about interaction with and
experience any products and services is most important way for wining brand loyalty. In this
defined that through B to C activations of ranging of product launches to mobile tours for
product sampling, Agency EA strategically engaged with customers in natural environment that
helps in increasing strong connections with events and customers. It generally designed as the
part of integrated campaign, increase brand awareness among consumers, generate value and
build customer loyalty.
Experiential strategy and consumer engagement activations:
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In this recognise that today's connected world, people do not want only informations
regarding specific product and services but also they want real time experience as the part of
their buying decisions process. EA's expertise in the market of experience use strategies such as
combined with in house production, digital and creative capabilities that enable for delivering the
consumers programs which builds relationship and influence consumers behaviour as well as
motivate action.
Campaign and product launches:
For the effective Experiential marketing, an effective campaign can support in
significantly influence the success of a new product, services, new store, company and building a
marketing campaign. According to Rice, 2015 in this defines that how a customer, employee and
stakeholder experience a event regarding a particular brand for the purpose of maximum
satisfaction and also for brand loyalty. There are various kinds of companies who believes in
experiential marketing for building strong relations among customers. One of the example of
Agency EA which use leverage strategic as it support in creating compelling campaign launches
which generally extended beyond it. Therefore, events and campaigns are very beneficial for
every business organisation in enhancing the knowledge of the customers about specific products
as their main aim is to build good relationship as well as long term relations among people rather
then providing product and services and increasing sales. It is useful for both as organisation and
customers because it stay connect with particular brand and increase reputations in their mind.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that it is must be requires to review
at Experiential Marketing because it is the part of strategy that support in building long term
relations among customers regarding any particular brand. In this defined the various theories of
experiential marketing and it applications for creating brand image and increase it in the
customer's mind for strong connections. Campaign and events play major role in enhancing
knowledge of the target audience regarding the products and services.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Beaulac, G. and Kenyon, T., 2014. Critical Thinking Education and Debiasing (AILACT Essay
Prize Winner 2013). Informal Logic. 34(4). pp.341-363.
Brown, A. L. and Au, W., 2014. Race, memory, and master narratives: A critical essay on US
curriculum history. Curriculum Inquiry. 44(3). pp.358-389.
Cabantous, L. and et. al., 2016. Critical essay: Reconsidering critical performativity. Human
Relations. 69(2).pp.197-213.
Diekmann, A., 2018. The Concept of Rationality in Modern Social Sciences: A Critical
Appraisal of Joseph A. Schumpeter’s Essay on “The Meaning of Rationality”. In
Rationality in the Social Sciences. pp. 121-135. Springer, Cham.
Hodgson, G. M., 2017. Karl Polanyi on economy and society: a critical analysis of core
concepts. Review of Social Economy. 75(1). pp.1-25.
Levy, N., 2015. Zimmerman’s The Immorality of Punishment: A Critical Essay. Criminal Law
and Philosophy. 9(1). pp.103-112.
Reardon, B. A. and Snauwaert, D. T., 2015. Reflective pedagogy, cosmopolitanism, and critical
peace education for political efficacy. In Betty A. Reardon: A Pioneer in Education for
Peace and Human Rights. pp. 181-198. Springer, Cham.
Rice, T. J., 2015. James Joyce: A Guide to Research. Routledge.
Ridge, S. G., 2015. Reflections on transformation and the role of the intellectual: A critical
essay. English Academy Review. 32(2). pp.132-144.
Swinburne, A. C., 2017. William Blake: A Critical Essay. Library of Alexandria.
Taliaferro, C., 2016. The Open Museum and its Enemies: An Essay in the Philosophy of
Museums. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements. 79. pp.35-53.
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