If marketers have had a lesson to learn in recent years, it is the importance of experiences as a point of connection with consumers. The way to reach potential buyers and to make them remember the brand, its products and its values was not so much in launching traditional marketing and advertising messages as in creating immersive actions, marketing of experiences and activities in which consumers were part of what was happening.
It was done very little, with subway stations converted into experiences or with actions in massive events such as concerts, but also with lesser scope, when what was wanted was to position the brand in an exclusive environment. In these latter formats, the events sought to reach a specific audience and make them feel that they were 'special'.
But what about the marketing of experiences in the times of the coronavirus? How do these actions continue to be created when your consumers are either trapped in their homes, or have a reduced mobility availability or simply fear the disease and prefer not to be exposed to it? Keeping marketing experiences and continuing to connect with consumers seems, like this, more difficult than ever.
This is a question marketers have been asking themselves from the very beginning of the crisis. The veto on large events and reduced capacity already invited us to wonder a year ago how the marketing of experiences was going to continue in an environment with less face-to-face reach. The marketing of experiences had to become virtual, experts warned already then.
Almost a year later, analysts pointed out that experiential marketing could continue to exist and work, as long as marketers were able to convert it. It could be created during the purchasing processes and in digital environments, but also in offline environments that continue to operate, as long as they knew how to integrate it with the protection guidelines against the coronavirus.
Some companies had managed to create experiential marketing actions that were developed directly in the home of their consumers, which managed to combine experiences with a safe environment.
Even, and as luxury companies are showing, premium experiential marketing and experiences linked to exclusive niche markets can continue to be produced. The key is to make the virtual unique and select.
Caviar, chocolate, and an exclusive streaming
Large companies are launching luxury emissions that Best Database Provider can only be accessed by an exclusive audience, as reflected in Vogue Business. They are like parades and parties for niche audiences but linked to a digital and limited environment. For example, in December, Cartier organized a digital event to which it only invited its most exclusive clients in the United States.
The streaming-only worked at an exact time, the press could not attend, it could not be recorded and it was protected by a password. If you had not received the invitation in a personalized way, you would not be able to enter. It was the online version of his exclusive Christmas party that is held physically in 'normal' years.
The experience sought to be intimate and private, exclusive, with very careful storytelling in which the attendees were integrated. As one of the heads of the agency that did the work for Cartier explains, it was not a simple video for Instagram, it was something higher.
Cartier's is the one they have mentioned with name and details for Vogue Business, but the agency has created similar events for other brands. In fact, they believe that private and well-cared streaming will become one of the elements that will have a path in the future.
"We try to create Buy Mobile Database an event similar to as if you were at a party with us," says one of the directives. Attendees not only saw the event and were integrated into it: Cartier also sent them gift boxes with the food and drink that they would have consumed if it were a traditional party. While watching the streaming, they drank champagne