Archive for the ‘experiental marketing’ Category

A Predisposed Nose

An interesting post from Stuart Elliott of the NY Times on the innovative marketing of Chanel’s newest fragrance line summarized below:

Marketers of luxury brands have been laggards in advertising online because they have considered the traditional media better showcases for their glamorous, glitzy pitches. Now, Chanel is joining the ranks of brands with big Internet presences, devoting a considerable part of a sensual new global campaign to efforts in the new media.

The campaign, for the Coco Mademoiselle fragrance, includes ads on Web sites like eonline.com, instyle.com, nymag.com and nytimes.com as well as search-engine marketing on Google and Yahoo.

There is also a special Web site mademoiselle-forever.com where computer users are able to watch video clips as well as get a virtual tour of the Paris apartment of the designer Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel.

To generate “buzz” about the special Web site, Chanel has been communicating with the writers of 200 blogs around the world, including Beauty Addict (beautyaddict.blogspot.com), Blogdorf Goodman (blogdorfgoodman.blogspot.com) and Kristopher Dukes (kristopherdukes.com). The bloggers received a mysterious box offering them a preview of the special Web site along with an inside look at the making of a sexy commercial that is the centerpiece of the campaign, featuring the young actress Keira Knightley.

More than a dozen bloggers were even invited to Paris, to receive an actual tour of the Chanel apartment.

The full article can be found here.

What I found interesting is the use of  on-line media, social networks, blogs and influentials to promote the new Chanel perfume Coco Mademoiselle.   Here’s a product category that really lends itself to experiential marketing and finally someone is going beyond the scratch & sniff ads in the high priced fashion mags.

Not being a perfume wearer myself, what intrigues me is how imagery, social chatter, recommendations, brand names, and even a tour of the designer’s home can predispose a consumer’s senses to expect a certain smell.  I’m not sure what I would expect this perfume to smell like much less be able to describe that fragrance, but it’s interesting how marketing can get your nose properly “set up” to have a brand deliver on an olfactory promise.   Great experiential campaigns engage as many senses as they can to deliver on the brand promise.  With each additional sense, the consumer becomes more involved and more immersed in the essence of Chanel.

Think of other great brands in the food, wine, music or even clothing (tactile) categories that market through one sense (sight or sound) only to pay off that marketing through another (taste smell or touch).   And hopefully everything connects in a meaningful way inside the consumer’s mind.

As my friend Erik Hauser says, “Good experiential marketing doesn’t always have to be touched (in a live event sense) to be felt”.

The new kid: connected meaning and relevance

Connected meaning and relevance.  You’re probably thinking this phrase is fast becoming the new buzz words in marketing now that we’ve tossed aside ”breaking through the clutter”.  But hang with me.  I write this in response to some good chatter on the  Experiential Marketing Forum on the topic.  And by the way I would encourage anyone that plays in this brand game, or just looking for stimulating conversation on the topic of consumer engagement through experiences, to join IXMA and get involved.

Anyway back to connected meaning and relevance.  Way too deep of a topic to thoroughly cover in this format but good brand building that hits on these two sweet spots ultimately wins over consumers hearts, minds, and souls.

In its simplest terms connected meaning is something that is controlled by the consumer.  Brands that have done their homework  will present a brand personality and proposition that consumers will want to connect with in a meaningful way.  Not just lustful infatuation but a long term relationship. 

Relevance is even more controlled by the consumer.  Brands that say they speak the language and embody the lifestyle can only cross their fingers that their brand is relevant.  Relevant to a consumer’s lifestyle, passions, and ultimately relevant to who they are as an individual - not just their social community.

So if everything is controlled by the consumer, “What’s a brand to do?”  Sit back and let the consumer rule our marketing?  Well, kind of, sort of, but not really.  Strong brands need to aspire to understand their consumers better than the consumers know themselves.  Not just in a focus group kind of market research way (not that research isn’t important- it is), but live among them, hire them into your company.  Ruminate amongst their tribe (social community) and most importantly listen to what they’re saying about your brand and other brands they are passionate about.  Then once you gain clarity about their passion points and personalities make your brand personality (and any experiences that come from that) fit within that space - naturally. 

Think back to elementary school days.  How often did your group accept the “new kid”?  And what typically did the new kid need to do to become accepted?  Usually follow the leaders, act like they did, and assimilate naturally without being noticed or ostracized. 

Is your brand trying to be the new kid?  It’s tough.  Consumers don’t let just anyone, much less everyone, in the pack.  While the schoolyard analogy may be a stretch, I believe kids exhibit a very sophisticated consumer behavior even at a young age in how they adopt friends, trends, and ultimately brands.  Where do you think we as big fancy educated adult consumers learned all this stuff we call connected meaning and relevance?  It certainly wasn’t from blogs.

Respect your consumer’s time…all 3500 hours of it.

Back at it after a bit of a Labor Day end of Summer mental wind-down/respite. 

There’s a post on media consumption and shifting startegies that is getting a bit of conversation in the media world.

A couple of key points:

Overall communications spending is projected to grow 6.4% in 2007.  Good news for us in the branding biz.

Consumers are shifting their attention to alternative media.  Cconsumers are also migrating away from advertising-supported media, such as broadcast TV and newspapers, to consumer-supported platforms, such as cable TV and video-games.  No real revalations - but more bad news if you’re in the :30 spot biz.

And probably the saddest fact of all is that consumers are spending over 3500 hours annually engaged in some form of media messaging.

Now I’m not sure how VSS measures such statistics and I’m sure we could all say figures lie, and liars figure, but none the less at over 9 hours a day it is an inordinate amount of our daily lives.  Granted much of that media consumption is clutter not being paid attention to; much less retained or recalled.  But here’s the shout-out to smart marketers trying to build brands.  Respect the consumer’s time!

Think about it.  After consumers sleep 6-8 hours and then go off and spend the same amount of time earning a respectable wage to buy our stuff, we as marketers are basically taking all of what’s left.  Treat it as a business transaction with your consumer.  They will give us a small slice of that precious nine hour program block only for something worthwhile in return.

Make your branded message engaging and provide some real value for that time they just gave away.  Make it entertaining.  Make it remarkable.  Don’t just throw your message into the mix assuming it will connect with someone.  As Bonnie Raitt said, “Let’s give them something to talk about”.  Because when people talk, people buy.