Managing Director, Sense
How has being an award winner benefitted Sense?
Winning awards is a wonderful independent professional endorsement of the great work we’ve done, and from this perspective they are invaluable. They also really champion experiential and reveal how much it has progressed in recent years to become a highly sophisticated discipline. It’s a great opportunity to show that the most successful campaigns are built on clear objectives, KPIs and strong measurement to prove their effectiveness.
How pleased were you that your hard work was recognised as award winning?
To say it feels great is an understatement. The recognition of your work by the wider industry is incredibly rewarding and motivation for our entire team. It shows us all what we can achieve when we work together as a whole company, from strategy right though to implementation, and reminds everyone how important every part of the process is and the key role each individual plays.
Have you worked on further exciting projects since?
We’re really excited to be launching our first brand activations for Innocent during January and February of 2016, having been appointed to work across a broad range of real world campaigns for the leading smoothie and drinks brand.
Next year will also see us build on the success of The Economist’s subscriptions campaign, which has now been rolled out in 14 cities across four continents, and generated over 12,000 subscriptions for the business newspaper. We launched an exciting new theme, Future Forces, at the end of November in the UK, and look forward to taking it global during 2016. It builds on our insect ice cream ‘Discomfort Food’ campaign, by offering free crepes made from insect flour with an insect filling. It once again highlights the fact that eating insects could help relieve the world food shortage to target people most likely to want to subscribe to The Economist.
We’ll also be launching our new book on experiential marketing, in association with ISBA, which London Metropolitan University is keen to incorporate into its Event Management course. It solidifies our real world approach to marketing and shows just how sophisticated and important experiential has become.
What does the future hold for Sense?
Last year saw a major step change in our approach to experiential marketing as we kicked off our broader, more versatile real world ideas strategy. We’ll be developing this further during 2016, working with clients to address their key business challenges. We’re looking forward to some exciting briefs, pushing the boundaries and taking experiential to a new level.
Why is it important for this industry to show off its best practitioners and leading suppliers?
It boosts awareness and recognition of the discipline. The popular view of experiential is now out of kilter with the current reality. It still tends to be viewed as peripheral to the marketing mix, but a number of this year’s winning campaigns at Cannes had experiential activity at their core, showing its rising importance. By showcasing the increasingly sophisticated and effective campaigns that are being developed, awards help to raise the profile of the discipline and show what can be achieved.
What are your personal highlights of 2015
Last year was Sense’s best to date, illustrated by the success of our new real world approach, some important client wins and the number of awards we have won.