Suzanne Malhotra, director, 4D Design discusses the power of authenticity to make experiences more memorable It is nothing new to suggest that ‘experiential’ has drifted into the pool of marketing buzzwords event attendees have added to their spam filter. Whereas once, pop-ups, socially integrated events and quirky photo ops were exciting and new, now they […]
Data and Insight into brand experience trends in venues provided by SpaceandPeople. This report first appeared in FMBE Magazine Winter issue, February 2016 There was a sharp rise in experiential promotions in Q3 across all sectors of our business. This was in part due to a major contract win with Network Rail which represents 17 […]
Kate Nightingale, the leading consumer psychologist, has published her in-depth report on how sensory retail design influences consumer behaviour. It’s called Sensory Retail Design Report and it’s online now. Sensory Retail Design Report explores the science behind why certain retail environments lead to higher emotional engagement and therefore are more commercially effective. Kate discusses the […]
A guest blog by Lee Thomas, managing director, Aesthetics Providing staff is a very competitive business. At Aesthetics we never compromise the quality of our staff to win a pitch however this becomes increasingly difficult when clients are cost sensitive. What impact could substandard staff have on your client and your event? If event cost […]
By Frank Wainwright, Editor Cadbury’s hero Dairy Milk bar has inspired some landmark advertising, often creative and often eclectic, but laying down some bubble wrap? ‘Tastes Like this Feels’, are you serious? Dairy Milk isn’t even bubbly. I thought it was Aero that was bubbly? Coke is also bubbly. Isn’t Coke the brand of ‘Taste […]
Investing in mobile apps will bring customers back into retail stores, and help avoid the estimated loss of 900,000 jobs and thousands of stores in the next decade – according to the UK mobile app developer. The latest research by Apadmi, of 1,000 UK smartphone users, found that mobile apps can drive consumers back to […]
Global delivery experts Fastlane International says High Street stores with attractive web sites and delivery options will succeed; but fragmented approaches will fail. The battle for British retail has moved from the High Street to the web; with delivery options fast becoming as important to consumers as price. The global delivery expert Fastlane International says […]
Suzi Thrift, Jack Morton Worldwide tells the production story behind the big adult Candy Crush bounce by the Thames As part of a team of agencies, experience specialists Jack Morton Worldwide produced and built Bouncingham Castle on the Thames at the start of March. Suzi Thrift led the team that made sure the idea became multi-sensory […]
Digital transformation within European companies is making good progress, and is meeting with approval, particularly with younger workers. British companies have adapted extremely well to embrace digital transformation whilst France is at the bottom of the pile and Germany too is still playing catch-up. These are the main findings of an online survey conducted by […]
Want field sales? Who are you going to deal with? FMBE looks at the leading award performers in recent years and selects 7 agencies to consider CPM Outsourced sales agency CPM’s absence from the awards last year meant we were without the team who owned the category in 2012 and 2013 with two golds and […]
01.03.2016 FMBE has not been political before now but this essay came our way and we are putting it out there. It speaks of fan/voter behaviour at least. Why politics is the new gameshow Today is Super Tuesday only it doesn’t feel so very Super. There is a horrible inevitability about the rise of Donald […]
FMBE took a look at awards performance in 2013-15 and selected the seven stand out FM&BE agencies in the low budget and small scale category. An interesting mix of big and small agencies have prevailed but all have one thing in common – they work just as hard for the small budget holders, challengers and […]
A guest column by Tim Lark, Service Innovation Group Diageo’s futures director has been in the press recently discussing the future of the brand and how technology is impacting on how we shop. He brings up the question of whether supermarkets will still exist in a decade. He didn’t know the answer – but does […]
James Gordon-MacIntosh, managing partner, Hope&Glory PR spoke to Harriet Cramer How did the agency come about? Jo (Carr, managing partner) and I worked for 77 PR (now part of Fishburn) and although it was fun, we decided to strike out and do it for ourselves in 2011. Our task was simple, we realised there are […]
Back in the Summer of 2015, when Kevin Jackson was still VP at George P Johnson, I caught up with him to enquire about his next big venture in the world of Brand Experience. Kevin is now back in action as the owner of The Experience is The Marketing April 2015 What does the […]
In the 2015 Summer issue of FMBE magazine, we tuned into Broadwick Live and its high voltage brand appeal, by interviewing the key players at the agency. Here’s a recap. Entertainment agency and festival organiser Broadwick Live has created award winning travel and music events. The business, which has recently secured investment from Global Entertainment has accolades […]
A guest blog by Helen Bryce, senior staffing manager at Sense Staff. It was a typical grey, dreary January day, the kind that induces SAD as soon as you wake up. I fell off my packed tube, jostled my way to the escalator, and emerged onto the station concourse. The Silent Crew were there, waiting. […]
Brand ambassadors are increasingly being used for more than just promotional work. Sarah Abdelghani, Account Manager at Blackjack explains how and why. Although you might not believe it, experiential activity is no longer only about running live promotions to drive sales or brand experiences to directly boost awareness and engagement among consumers. More and more, […]
It’s the most wonderful time of year for anyone in the experiential and retail industries. Christmas brings a flurry of fresh new campaigns, all striving to be the most talked about. For a lot of people, it doesn’t really feel like Christmas until they see the giant Coca-Cola truck on their television screens or their […]
As we kick off 2016, Circle Agency’s board creative director, Neil Hooper, outlines his experiential marketing predictions for the year ahead. 1. Don’t just use social, behave socially. As brands look at digital as the holy grail of communication reach, we should not forget the facelessness of digital. Brands need to consider their response platforms, […]
A blog by Sean Doyle, Head of Creative Services at Concerto Live In this digital age, where virtual communications reign, it’s increasingly common to feel oddly disconnected. People crave real engagement and this is a feeling clever brands and their marketing teams are tuning in to. Success is no longer measured by who can shout […]
Rock’n’roll caterers Eat to the Beat, part of the Global Infusion Group, have worked with the Hammersmith Apollo for over 30 years and the relationship is set to reach a new high as the iconic building launches as a corporate venue tonight.
Not traditionally viewed as a typical career choice, promotional staffing is varied, exciting, fun and rewarding. Dominique Packham, staffing director at brand experience agency Sense, looks at how attitudes to the work are changing, it’s rise in importance to brands and the many benefits it brings. In today’s highly competitive consumer environment, with many brands […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Campaign of the Decade Sponsored by Avantgarde Pool 1 This is online Pool 1 of the 2014 Brand Experience Creative Campaign of the Decade award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges and an audience online via Google Hangouts on October 21st 2014. How […]
Sponsored by Avantgarde Pool 2 This is online Pool 2 of the 2014 Brand Experience Creative Campaign of the Decade award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges and an audience online via Google Hangouts on October 21st2014. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen […]
Callum Stanley and Adam Wakeford, Gottabe! discuss how definitions can effect the workplace All over the world, marketing brands are naming their promotional staff differently. Agencies are using ‘Brand Ambassador’, ‘Reps’ and ‘Brand Advocate’, to name just a few, as an alternative to the more generic ‘Promo Staff’. Why is this? What benefits does this […]
Jens Tangen, head of sales, intu Properties brings together the mindset approach to marketing and sponsorship opprotunities at shopping centres Mindset marketing is an important consideration, and the ability for live and experiential marketing to connect with people when they are in the right mood to be approached is unparalleled by any other media. For […]
Discussion in FMBE magazine’s July (Summer) issue saw SpaceandPeople’s Q2 report picking up on some new brands taking on brand experience marketing. Whilst one of the new brand’s Barny, is a member of the giant Mondelez stable, the arrival of Bonne Maman to the experiential table, on its shopping centre tour with The Circle Agency […]
Camilla Felstead, client services director, GMR Marketing, discusses the shift to purchase Countless research studies show that real world brand experiences, offering consumers the opportunity to get their hands on a product and try-before-they-buy, can shift purchase consideration by up to 85%. As boardroom sales targets become more aggressive there is pressure on experiential activity […]
Nicola Harding, account director, FS Distribution, discusses how social media can keep a logistics firm connected We live in the era of social media. How many of us have a Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, or Instagram account? Or all of them? Or all of them, plus a raft of others? We love to interact, converse and […]
Sebastian Coe discusses the technology that is driving cultural change in event consumption It occurred to me when I was in Brazil for the World Cup that when the 2010 tournament kicked off in South Africa, the iPad was just a couple of months old. Apple have shifted more than 200 million tablets since then […]
Today, your experiential campaign can end up in places you never dreamed it would, but most brands aren’t prepared for that journey says Alex Smith from agency Sense You know the feeling you get when someone tells a story, and ends up trailing off with “well, I guess you just had to be there”? Well, […]
SpaceandPeople’s Q1 Data and Insight report (FM Spring issue) gave us quite a bit of insight into the current focus on targeted influencing. Carefully targeted brand experiences are increasingly being used to influence early adopters and specific fan bases. In the column various activities were mentioned that have used St Pancras International on different event […]
Will Northover, Client Services Manager, Blackjack Promotions argues that customer data collection should be easy when using brand experiences Everyone loves a freebie. It doesn’t matter how old you are, how wealthy you are. Whatever your job title, if there’s a freebie up for grabs then you’re automatically interested. For this reason, I’m baffled why […]
London’s latest shopping experience arrived on 24 October when the 350,000 sq ft London Designer Outlet opens in Wembley. This is the first designer outlet within the M25 and a sign of the growing success of this style of shopping experience. There are 50 designer outlets in the UK and 49% of the UK population […]
In this interview, Frank Wainwright put questions to Michael Brown, managing director, PS Live about his outlookfollowing the formal emergence of PS Live earlier this year. A shorter version of this interview appeared in Field Marketing magazine, Summer issue 2013 How has PS Live set out to bring together skills and concepts from PR, OOH, […]
In the Spring issue of Field Marketing magazine an interesting piece on preparing for an all-weather Summer appeared. It is true that Shopping Centres can be a nice support for outdoor campaigns offering space allied to weather certainty – and proximity to retail. Here is a ‘reprint’ of that thought piece, courtesy of Brandspace. The […]
Annette Lacey, managing director, Service Innovation Group Grocery multiples are set to capitalise on the new opportunities offered by a networked society. The advent of social media, android devices and 3G internet access has rapidly changed consumer behaviour, diversifying the high street into a real and virtual phenomenon. According to figures published by retail analysts […]
Frank Wainwright asseses the data that has shown some shopping centre trend insight in the magazine this issue In our last issue of Field Marketing, the latest data and insight update provided by Spaceandpeople showed Food and Drink (22%) and Automotive (20%) accounts for 42% of all brand experience activity in the locations that they […]
A guest contribution from Steve Radford, CEO, Fieldstar With the launch of the Asda programme the UK now has 2 accreditation programmes for third-party merchandisers working within grocery multiple retailers (the other being operated by Sainsbury’s). But are they fit for purpose? Well I suppose that depends on what you believe their purpose is. From […]
When Brandspace came to me with insight revelations about a recent brand campaign the last brand I expected it to be about was Samsung, currently the fastest growing brand – in terms of recognition – globally. Samsung’s Olympic product activations have been a locked casket to the media so far, so to hear that Brandspace […]
As Spring becomes official the number of brand experience campaigns about the place begins to step up. In line with that I expect to see a number of Brand Experience supply busineses show how they are stepping up their game in terms of how they support the industry. Last week’s news about the launch of […]
A guest blog from Leah Bradbury, head of recruitment, Kru Live It has been a busy year of recruitment in 2012 due to the demand from the Games and following this there has been a large, natural ‘drop-off’ since from personnel leaving the field of temporary work as well as a new influx from a […]
y Helen Hanson, managing director, Hel’s Angels Do you remember the last time someone gave you a free sample? Maybe. Do you remember the last time someone dressed as say, a witch or a cowboy gave you a free sample? Possibly. Do you remember the last time someone dressed as say, a witch or a […]
Purity’s talent manager, Emma Burden reveals her preferred route to successful brand ambassador performance 1. Be crystal clear – Have a vision for how you would like your campaign to look, sound & feel. Incorporate your brand values; Brand Ambassadors are a key source of brand communication & engagement so it’s extremely important that your […]
A guest blog by Andrew Mooney, field marketing client services director at Momentum Instore When the economic crisis hit the UK in 2007 few had a clear idea about the extent of the impact it would have and how long it would take the country to recover. Well, five years later and it feels like […]
Tom McInerney, director of Etherlive, provides an insight into these trends There are several technology trends revolutionising experiential marketing and I am eager, from the perspective of a leading technology company, to get to the root of how marketers can harness this technology to increase their brand engagement. We have noted an overall 60% increase […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Award LIVE Pool 5 This is online Pool 5 of the 2012 Brand Experience LIVE award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges at the IOEX exhibition 8th March. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen from 5 ‘pools’ […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Award LIVE Pool 4 This is online Pool 4 of the 2012 Brand Experience LIVE award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges at the IOEX exhibition 8th March. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen from 5 ‘pools’ […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Award LIVE Pool 3 This is online Pool 3 of the 2012 Brand Experience LIVE award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges at the IOEX exhibition 8th March. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen from 5 ‘pools’ […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Award LIVE Pool 2 This is online Pool 2 of the 2012 Brand Experience LIVE award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges at the IOEX exhibition 8th March. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen from 5 ‘pools’ […]
The Brand Experience Awards Creative Award LIVE Pool 1 This is online Pool 1 of the 2012 Brand Experience LIVE award, an award which culminates in a LIVE final in front of 4 judges at the IOEX exhibition 8th March. How this competition works Just 4 finalists will emerge to be chosen from 5 ‘pools’ […]
Brand X magazine reader questions answered by Sally Durcan, MD, Hotcow 1. Is Opportunity To See a meaningful statistic? In my opinion, no. The value for experiential is that you can provide very insightful and robust measurement responses for the client. Opportunity to See is basically the footfall numbers and this relies on foolproof statistics […]
A guest column from Martine Eveille, board account director, Lime and Arc UK Looking ahead through this year is impossible without taking a view on the Olympic Games. Those few weeks under the sporting spotlight are going to be the focus of much activity for multiple brands. But inevitably some will end up wasting their […]
The Festival Awards Conference: Pedal to the Metal deabte This is video footage from November’s debate on Sports and Music sponsorship held at HMV Music. The panel, introduced by me are: Karen Earl, chairman, Synergy Andy Westlake, CEO, Fast Track (both representing major sports sponsorship and brand partnerships) Gareth Cooper, festival owner/promoter (including Snowbombing, Beach […]
A guest column from Richard Dutton, new business director, Lime and Arc UK Physical retailers who are coming up against exclusively online competitors can take some solace from our research that shows that shopping on the high street is still preferred to online for most UK shoppers. Specifically the study reveals that over half of […]
Brand X magazine reader questions answered by Sally Durcan, MD, Hotcow 1. Should I trust an experiential agency to handle in accordance with the Data Protection Act? The simple answer is yes you can. As an agency we have a legal obligation to keep up to date on the laws and regulations that affect our […]
A guest column from Martine Eveille, borad account director, Arc UK I attended a talk by an inspiring speaker – Howard Saunders, founder of Echochamber – which led me to think about just how much involvement is needed from a consumer when interacting with a brand experience? In a world where brand engagement is ever […]
Here is my overdue awards commentary – with apologies for its late emergence – after a glitch I had to do rewite! It is a quick insight into who won gold and silver awards and why. The full analysis will be in our print edition award’s special in November. The Field Marketing Awards Merchandising and […]
We are really excited to announce the final eight contenders in the 2011 FMBE Audience Award, sponsored by Avantgarde. VOTING: IF YOU ARE LOGGED IN THERE WILL BE A POLL ON THIS PAGE SO THAT YOU CAN VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE CAMPAIGN. ANYONE MAY VOTE THOUGH FOR UP TO 4 FAVOURITE CAMPAIGNS. VOTING IS WEIGHTED […]
A guest column from Diana Cawley, managing director, Lime revealing insight from Lime’s 6000 shopper survey The multichannel shopping phenomenon has empowered today’s consumers more than ever before. The shopping journey no longer simply ends, or begins in-store, with 90% of today’s consumers using one or more channel on their path to purchase. Consumers increasingly […]
At just one event – the Champion’s League Festival of Football in Hyde Park – I counted 12 ‘opportunities’ to pose for a photo and – typically – to have it uploaded to the Internet. The most popular photos at the event, judging by queue length, were standing with the trophy itself, closely followed by […]
The day before yesterday, I visited Telford. Of course I had a reason Nobody trips lightly into Telford. There are no passing minstrels writing songs. The place is rigid with function, road, rail, bridge, walkway, glass, tarmac, cycle paths, concrete. Britain’s very own Alexanderplatz, minus the historical relevance. A suitably soulless shopping centre squats left […]
Projection mapping isn’t all about huge displays onto the facades of buildings… Projection mapping can be used in an engaging and memorable setting. Creative production agency Drive made a real impact in the auto industry with 4D projection-mapping making for a ‘radically different’ car launch experience in Bentley showrooms across Britain. Drive took to the […]
1. CPM, GSK (2008, Client/Agency Relationship Award) ‘Relationship’ was a special award in many ways. It was a one off award that meant that some mega-teams could show off the whole of their history rather than just that of the proceeding year. It was an eye opening long and arduous session for the judges, with […]
2. TBWA/Chiat/Day, Gatorade We don’t get that many Cannes Grand Prix winners entered into FM&BE and even fewer that fail to win our award to sport alongside their Lion, but that was the fate that befell my second best ever FM&BE award entry. It was beaten by the greatest ever branded candid camera stunt in our […]
Queueing has become a cool pastime. How on earth did that happen? First in line for an iPad 2? Take a bow. Apple will create a guard of honour to applaud you into their Regent St store. You can have a brag about your passion to get the first one. You can say ‘I was […]
3. Out of the Blue, The Helen Bamber Foundation (2008, Innovative Campaign) Did you hear the one about shipping containers and the event that travelled from city to city? No, not the 2010-11 Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange, but instead a 2007 terrible tale of sweat, sickness and sex. In 2007 connected shipping containers appeared in Trafalgar […]
4 REL, Red Bull (2010, Brand/Store Relationship) Red Bull have celebrated their Team of the Year trio of wins and rightly so. They have set a new standard in team training and performance. This gold winner was perhaps more impressive again as it shows how all of that Red Bull team energy translates into a […]
5. Gigunda, Tide (2006, International) Tsunami devastation in Japan adds a further layer of relevance to my selection as the 5th best FMBE award entry ever. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, how brave was P&G brand Tide to become part of the clean up operation, taking the risk of using P&G’s enormous power to […]
10. BEcause, Pampers (2005, Roadshow) A win at FMBE was the first award for a campaign that saw its most recent incarnation last year and has a huge track record of award success, peaking in 2006-7 when Sleep Like a Baby took over from this World of Babies tour. The agency and brand team defended […]
15. Infinite Group, Sony (2008, Retail Training/Mystery Shopping) The older it gets the better this entry looks. The mystery shops were commissioned by Sony for Sony Centres and showed a big upturn in results whilst nicely motivating staff. This entry came to us on video as a hidden camera live mystery shop, filmed especially with […]
Here is a piece of work from Leo Burnett, Italy called Bus. It was created last year. It has a number of experiential marketing experts raving about it. If you haven’t seen the video, watch it before reading why I think it is, well, a bit crap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8ukBwHRyI Well, now you’ve seen it, perhaps you’ll […]
30 LIME, Tesco Wines (2008, Retail Training) Q, How do you make wine samplers more effective? A. Teach them about wine. It seems so simple, but this obvious idea hadn’t been tried before. Until this point, Tecso had done without LIME’s staff and samplers in the wine category, in spite of their strong ongoing relationship […]
Underneath the cliched exterior of B&Q’s massive mob lies a major step in B2E2C co-ordinated marketing I’m saying good. There you go, blog over. OK, perhaps a little more to flesh this out. On 6th March Kingfisher DIY retailer B&Q had group dances, flash mob styleee across 330 of its branches in an employee meets […]
35 RT Marketing, Neff (2007, new agency) RT Marketing beat Cosine (see number 36) to the gold in this category, a result that probably surprised everyone in the room as RT’s successes, on a financial par with Cosine’s were much less well known. That in itself was a surprise as RT was a go-getting business, […]
40 iD Experiential, Lipton’s Iced Tea (2010, Sampling) Beating the dual challenge from M&S and Morrisons to win gold in sampling was a major coup. Sampling is a heck of a category these days bursting with creative and logistical solutions. Brtivic called this their best ever sampling activity and it was certainly hard to imagine […]
45 JPMH, Compeed (2009 Targeting) One of the most glittering ‘experiential’ award winners ever, with global success for the agency, but no gold with us. Did my judges get this one wrong by awarding silver to JPMH and Compeed.? Well, yes and no. The debate, was it a live brand experience at all or more […]
50 Hotcow, Thomson Fly (2008, Use of Low Budget) The agency may be surprised to see this in my Top 50 as they have delivered far more spectacular work – creatively – than this, but I thought that this activity showed how much a PR stunt can achive. This job, delivered in just 5 live […]
55 Headcount, Loyalty Management UK (2006, Retail Training) LMUK, operators of the Nectar programme approached Headcount to deliver 3 waves of marketing activity in 400 Sainsbury’s stores. This was a clear lesson in how training staff makes a difference to consumer behaviour leading to a 16 per cent increase in swipes. Control stores, where staff […]
60 Sense, British Airways (2006, Brand Theatre) However did Sense persuade BA into a cutting edge experiential idea – actors on the Heathrow Express talking in loud voices about how lucky they were to take advantage of checking in online, before breaking cover with the line ‘Have you clicked yet?’ and dishing out Z Cards. […]
70 Imagination, Sony Europe (2007, Brand Theatre) Imagination’s carefully constructed multi-brand press launch, that took over the centre of Rhodes and a big hotel, was certainly a sign of the times. It has been copied a lot. I’d say Imagination gets copied more than any other event agency, and this was a great example of […]
75 IMS, The Guardian (2006, Tactical) When the Guardian decided to change paper size it supported the move with a big advertising push, but the move was also cloaked in mystery. It was a crucial time for the newspaper and for newspapers in general as modern lifestyles put a scourge on circulation figures. IMS were […]
80 Reach, Energizer Wilkinson Sword (2007 Merchandising and Compliance) This was a tale of how the challenger brands to market leaders Duracell and Gillette compete effectively even though ATL advertising spend for the challenger trails a long way behind. Reach showed how a 32 strong team, armed with what was then state of the art […]
85 REL, Sainsbury’s (2006, Merchandising and Compliance) It was a major reveal, the culmination of work that had started in 2004 and which saw REL strongly bonded to the store in a relationship that has lasted and gained ground year on year since. The judges believed it would go forward. REL had been entrusted with […]