Room to take advantage of brand affinity and sales

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 provide. As SpaceandPeople locations are predominantly shopping centres, I have interpreted the data to support two existing assumptions.

a.) Brand experience success at shopping centres is not exclusively reliant on proximity of purchase

b.) Brand experience is strongly endorsed as a useful media for both big and small ticket items

Of course some food and drink campaigns use coupons to inspire purchase later and there may be some direct retail presence at the mall, whilst some automotive campaigns focus on selling, by promoting nearby dealerships and booking test drives, but it is also clear that much of the brand experience effort is being poured into front of mind brand recall, establishing long term affinity through experience and multi-sensory engagement.

From the data, I was surprised that the combined efforts of consumer electronics (4%) and mobile communication (4%) drew only 8% of all activity, or by Heatlh and Beauty which accounted for just 6%. Like the two dominant sectors these product areas often activate through the line campaigns designed to maximise on brand experience’s unique ability to generate word of mouth and social buzz whilst offsetting some the cost of the activity with direct sales. In fact, the direct sales opportunity for these sectors, is even stronger as these products are premium sales items in shopping centres and they are often high value purchases.

The automotive sector in particular has great faith in brand experiences at shopping centres as a media for results-based marketing communications.

It would be interesting to see how the data and insight findings change in years to come. There are opportunities at the moment for electronics and health and beauty brands to invest more in brand experience marketing. These sectors involve some of the most innovative manufacturers in the world and brand experience is ideally suited to creating the right platform for their USPs to shine – both in terms stimulating the conditions for purchase and for achieving word of mouth advocacy.