Sense responds to experiential’s evolution by refocusing its products

Global brand experience agency Sense has reorganised its product offering by separating different types of experiential into silos, each with their own process and approach.

The move is a response to the maturation of the experiential discipline, one of the newest forms of marketing, which has relatively little established theory dedicated to it and can often be seen as confusing to clients.

Central to the reorganisation is separating trial activity from brand experiences. Lou Garrod explains:  “Experiential has often been seen as ‘one thing’ by the marketing industry, however we’ve found over the years that this causes a lot of confusion and often means that experiential becomes a bolt on for some brands rather than being central to the marketing mix, This is because it’s actually a discipline which straddles a number of different marketing challenges – from tactical direct work, right through to strategic brand building. Such different campaigns require completely different approaches to be effective, so we felt it appropriate to finally split them apart.”

Sense hopes that this distinction will not only make for better work, but will also help clients refine their briefs.

“The murkiness of experiential often makes it challenging for clients to understand what marketing functions it can perform – which in turn makes it harder to brief and measure than other disciplines,” said Lou Garrod. “By refining the various types of experiential, and the different ways they can be used, we hope to be able to work with clients to be more strategic in their use of the discipline – and ultimately create more effective work. And this refocused approach is reflected in our new website.”

The reorganisation will apply across the Sense network, which includes offices in London and New York.