Power Brand Experience: how Starbucks creates and manages high-touch, high-volume personal brand engagements

Starbucks in Shanghai

Go big or go home.

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

We have learned that coffee king Starbucks can create and manage millions – literally millions – of engagements across the country with the same energy it would with just a few.

Deborah Taylor, director of local marketing integration for Starbucks, shared with us how they did it by embracing a high-volume, high-touch experiential plan, executed on a nationwide scale, to create and maintain a consistent experience across thousands of brand ambassadors. Plus, Starbucks’ agency partner, Derek Drake of Passage Events, tells about how they developed a system to manage the process.

It’s well-known that the brand experience is a hallmark of the Starbucks retail store. So, the goal of its events is to extend that experience outside the store.

The first element of the event brief is to be fun and approachable. An example is a “Fender

Blender,” in which consumers sit on a bike and pedal-powered the blender to mix their drinks. This took about 20 seconds and the Starbucks staff had 20 more seconds to connect with the consumer.

The second element is to surprise and delight. At events held at major transit stations when people are standing in long lines, Starbucks employees might spontaneously appear to make commuters’ day a little nicer. At impromptu gatherings, Starbucks employees might show up with as little as two hours’ notice to distract the crowd and share some of the barista experience outside.

The third element was to spread the word. To extend the experience, Starbucks often set up

blogging stations at the events.

Creating high-touch, high-volume events: Applications for other power brand marketers

You can help apply this creative approach to your events. In brand event planning, connect in a relevant way, honestly engage the customer, make it easy to communicate, and motivate to take action.

I created this template to list some of the ways you could increase the “touch” of your event and extend the impact of the experience.

Power Brand Experience: brand engagement through event marketing

The rules of branding are being rewritten in real-time by marketers around the world. What do you do in an economy like this? How do you engage customers?

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm reflecting back on the changing environment -- connecting with customers requires absolute relevance and complete and total control over the total brand experience. 


Back in 2009, I wrote that "In the event marketing channel, that means finely tuned programs more intricately connected to the overall marketing mix – after all, the sum is more powerful than the parts."

I have proposed that Experiential Marketing be summarized in the four cornerstones of event branding:

1. Building the anticipation, 
2. engaging the audience, 
3. extending the experience, and 
4. magnifying the impact

It’s more even useful to think of it as face-to-face marketing.  Of course, face-to-face marketing has existed as long as marketing itself and in modern times in a variety of formats, including mobile marketing, trade shows, conferences, street events, and more.  

What’s different now is the requirement to deeply connect, not just speak through these venues and others. 

And that in turn requires a nuanced understanding of what makes for effective experiences that move people to action.

I really appreciate the many clients and colleagues who have help create great brand experiences over the years.

Power Brand Experience: how Microsoft transformed its events into turbocharged experiences

Microsoft MGX event

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

Quite possibly the world's largest spender on event marketing, Microsoft became a marketing juggernaut by transforming its event and trade show portfolio into a turbocharged, experiential machine.

Local, regional, national and global events are being mixed and matched into super-relevant engagement platforms. The fusion of event delivery and digital technology has never been more urgent. And live marketing is being measured more than ever before, showing Microsoft what's working and why.

I had a chance to share time at a conference with Jeff Singsaas, general manager of event marketing at Microsoft.  He offered a taste of where the event industry was headed, from the redeployment of dollars to portfolio analysis to measurement and professional development.

Singsaas imparted this 5-part formula for winning events:

1. A stable team of really good business people – to increase consistency of execution
2. Making sure everyone is clear and accountable – to navigate account and budget
3. Process focus – to remove variation and duplication
4. Clear roles & responsibilities – to improve communication and accountability
5. Great business acumen – to track budgets & metrics

From his vantage point at Microsoft, Singsaas saw the trend toward digital events being added to the marcom mix. This meant pairing tactics from the e-world to leverage traditional media – all in the context of successful meeting promotions and management.

 

Given this trend, there are four cornerstones of great marketing in this digital space:

• a clear value proposition of what the customer wants and needs.
• a more connected sales and marketing effort.
• a definable business strategy with goals and objectives for the events.
• storytelling that can make the message more compelling for customers.

Creating “the show that never ends” also means designing digital event tactics that can build anticipation, deepen the interaction, extend the experience, and magnify the impact beyond the venue.

Building anticipation means appealing to participants’ excitement and curiosity. Pre-meeting communication can provide practical information that address concerns. In this phase, one must avoid over-promising and under-delivering.

Deepening the impact means creating more relevant and meaningful interactions with customers. Planners should use technology as a means to this exchange, not simply having some gadgets in the meeting.

Extending the experience after the meeting can be accomplished in many ways using CDs, custom websites, and downloadable photos.

Magnifying the impact of an event helps leverage the investment in any convention, sales meeting, or customer event. Examples are posting meeting content online, hosting a keynote presentation in a virtual space, or even broadcasting live from an exhibit booth with updates from the show. Blogging from breakout groups is another common technique.

Rewriting the rule of event marketing: Applications for power brand marketers

Your event planning team can help you apply these best practices by connecting traditional event tactics with digital tools. 

I created this template to help list some of the ways you could get more from you next event when you build anticipation, deepen the interaction, extend the experience, and magnify the impact beyond the venue.

Power Brand Experience: how Xerox created “the conversation” objective for its trade show portfolio

Trade show portfolios continue to be streamlined, amped up, and transformed into better-performing platforms that provide a greater return than ever before. 

The way Xerox reinvented its trade show efforts emerged from research, strategic planning and new tools. 

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

Rosie Madison, VP of industry marketing, at Xerox shared with us the factors that led Xerox to rethink its exhibit strategy, how it weighed the risks of changing its game plan, and the internal and external hurdles the company had to overcome. 

Most of all, they offered insight on how the company measured success.

According to Xerox research, an effective trade show begins with “the conversation” objective. 

During the event set-up, the brand team should focus on what conversations with attendees are desired.  Then, the trade show plan can be created to fit that interaction.  Xerox customer research helped them design exhibits that could be flexible and customized for each show.  Plus, they allowed efficient traffic flow and easy customer dialogue.

Further, these successful brand conversations go beyond the booth itself.  The trade show staff must be effectively trained.  In order to make this training more consistent on a show-to-show basis, Xerox has created an e-learning platform with specific trade show selling curriculum.  Market research and sales force feedback guided them that selling at a convention booth was different from an office sales call. Therefore, different selling strategies are necessary.

Another point of evaluation is the exhibit venue.  

The trade show team must learn about the venue for events to determine why it is a good fit for “the conversation.”  How can the venue become part of the sales strategy?  How can it be leveraged for the area branch?  How can it be used to make greater impact with local customers?

Finally comes the process of managing and measuring these programs. 

The Xerox team creates a forecast and plan that include set criteria for each event – by brand – with the projected budgets to be allocated and target sales to be generated.  Because of the large number of trade shows at which Xerox exhibits, the review calls are scheduled weekly with both the agency and brand team.  The agenda includes a discussion of the criteria for upcoming shows, as well as a report of progress to goals.

Transforming the trade show portfolio: Applications for power brand marketers

When power brand teams create strategies for conventions, scientific meetings, and trade shows, you can begin by focusing on how you will facilitate customer conversations. 

Your plans are designed to help with Awareness, Attitude, and Usage.  That means you will educate exhibit attendees with new knowledge, engender a new positive attitude, and above all, change practice.

All three of these dynamics can and should be measured.   

Based on our learning, I created this template on which to list some of the ways you could make your trade show programs more productive and more measurable.

Power Brand Experience: 6 steps to successful event marketing plans

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm reflecting back on some of the important concepts that helped shaped my approach.

At an experiential marketing conference I participated in a few years back, Christopher Kappes, executive vice president of sales at Sparks, offered six key characteristics of an effective event plans. 

They are actionable keys to the brand team’s direction and the agency’s execution of the event.

The new imperative of the shifting market, as well as buyer behaviors, changes everything – and requires brand managers who want to thrive in this new world to innovate their Experiential Marketing from the ground up.

Once the art and science of the TV spot or print campaign or outdoor creative held priority. 

Today, investing marketing dollars effectively means not only understanding the new environment and developing an understanding of how to effectively engage the evolving buyer, but also learning how to apply that knowledge through a new vision of how to architect a marketing plan when your highest opportunity prospect is less likely to see your advertisement, has more choices, and has a louder voice than ever before. 

Enabling the customer to ‘look the brand in the eye’ has become the biggest task.

Power Brand Experience: 9 key principles of a well-crafted brand experience

On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

According to findings published for the Event Marketing Institute (www.eventmarketing.com), these are key principles of a well-crafted brand experience.

1. Authenticity. This is a critical foundation on which experiences depend.  Just one moment of damaged integrity can create a disconnect from which it is hard to recover, especially in a world so abundant with choices. This means a brand experiences must be true, honest reflections of the brand, the marketplace, and the context in which the customer will need or want them in real life.
2. Customer-centricity. A necessary condition for authenticity, truly customer-centric experiences are derived from the target audience’s perception of their world and their behavioral habits and preferences, accurately reflecting and heightening their viewpoint in the context of the brand. Such an experience crystallizes and positively reinforces an individual’s sense of certainty and confidence in their decision-making abilities and life choices.
3. Brand personification. Interactions that amplify brand values by providing a heightened sensory experience of them can impact deeply. These are iconic moments that form indelible and clear impressions of what a brand stands for that resonate with what an audience needs.
4. Interactivity. Interaction – as direct, relevant and personal as possible – with a brand is most likely to engage the audience. Adults learn best by doing and interaction supports the natural quest for self-expression and self-directed discovery.
5. Immersion. Enveloping the participants in a live experience has the potential to filter out the distractions that get in the way of the level of focus required for full engagement. In turn, heightened focus provides the opportunity to create the deepest level of understanding. It improves information absorption.
6. Ego-satisfying stories. Experiences that not only engage but do so in a way in which the participants can see themselves in an unfolding story, and in the process, triumphing over their challenges (whatever they may be) via affiliation with the brand, drive commitment. This requires a deft handling of psychology. The one question we human beings ask ourselves a hundred times a day – the question that spells the difference between success and failure – is “is this for me, or against me? And to what degree?” says Nathaniel Branden. Therefore, our ability to immerse participants in ego-satisfying stories is key. This requires the fundamental skill of storytelling too. Story is the most powerful communication construct for taking people from where they are and bringing them to the point of where you want them to go. Effective stories have a well-defined plot, antagonists and protagonists. Pacing is key, as is tension and myriad other storytelling techniques. And the effective communication of stories requires a multidisciplinary approach that collapses length of term and geography into multisensory representations of authentic applications of the brand offerings and values.
7. Sustainability. Great brand experiences are large or powerful enough to sustain engagement over time, as opposed to momentary interactions that only skim the surface. This is one of the key differentiators between product sampling and true Experience Marketing. In the former, you might get to sample how a new health food tastes while walking down the aisle of a store. In the latter, you live the experience of the benefits of a life fueled by more healthful choices. Sampling can be a component, but it’s not the totality. Moreover, in today’s world, live experiences can be extended via a variety of Internet mechanisms for enhanced sustainability.
8. Intimacy. A skillful orchestration of the qualities of customer-centricity, interactivity and ego-satisfying stories must generate an experience of intimacy by which each participant feels that even through the event is attended by many, it speaks personally and powerfully to the individual. This is key in this era of self-authored and co-authored content.
9. Measurement. Effective experience marketing acknowledges that audiences and markets define brands. Individuals empowered by brands to author their experiences volunteer opinions, critique and participation that allow marketers to mine much deeper and more substantial intelligence that can be used to refine live experiences, which should be done on an ongoing basis during an experience marketing campaign. This same information allows marketers to glean insights that help shape products and services and fully meet/exceed individual needs and expectations.

I'm grateful for the many clients and colleagues who have help create great brand experiences over the years.

1 touchpoint at a time: building a Power Brand Experience like Glacéau vitaminwater

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On the occasion of my 8th year of "BRAND INNOVATION," I'm looking back at the key concepts that influenced my perspective on power branding.

The Glacéau story is a tale of how a small beverage start-up literally invented an entire new category – “enhanced water” – and then mixed an interesting marketing cocktail that helped vitaminwater became a powerhouse brand… seemingly overnight.

Driving it all was Rohan Oza, Senior VP, and his Glacéau marketing team, the quarterbacks of a unique marketing mix connecting a growing brand portfolio with millions of consumers through a number of experiential channels, including the groundbreaking “try-it” campaign, all of which are helping to cement vitaminwater and now smartwater as the hottest brands around. 

I had a chance to meet Rohan at an experiential summit conference in Chicago.

His road to success had been truly unique, and here are the insights which can be learned from Glacéau.

To become the all-day brand – morning, noon, and night –  Glacéau created a “Fifth Degree Wheel” to illustrate the touchpoints on which it would focus brand experiences.

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With this wheel, the team studied the industry and researched what iconic brands have made it through the years and why. They built a foundational belief that their brand could be as big as those other big, well-known brands. 

In general, they focused on what people want and created customer loyalty by having a brand personality with a purpose.

Specifically, Oza and his team developed a recipe for successful brand experiences with three key ingredients:

• Product – Grassroots vehicles of promotion focused on product trial
• Partners – Attract the right partners, even engaging the high-profile celebrity endorsers in revenue sharing contracts
• People - Hire passionate people in every discipline and passionate agency teams who will reflect the brand

To see a sampling of the vitaminwater brand campaign, go to http://www.glaceau.com/

Building brands one touchpoint at a time: Applications for other power brands

I have a philosophy in planning groups, events, and media that you should somehow, somewhere, dominate something. So you can begin at almost any touchpoint to make an impact with a more meaningful, more relevant brand experience than your competition.

I created this template to list some of the touchpoints you have in interacting with your most important customers – then capture what’s working well at that point and what could make the experience extraordinary.

3 Brand Marketers Use Ethnography to Get to Know Customers

When traditional market research fails, many companies are turning to ethnographic studies to better understand their customers' needs and desires.

1. P&G launched a program called "Living It" where managers and senior leaders spend time in the homes of low-income customers around the world to develop deeper customer insights and create successful innovations.
2. Google videotaped Chinese users as they searched using the powerful engine. The video allowed Google to see first-hand how the users were searching and exactly why they weren't getting satisfactory results.
3. ParagonRx is a firm we at STINSON Brand Innovation often partner with to observe how physicians communicate with patients and how they actually prescribe and even administer therapies.

Think about how your brand team can observe customers using your products or services. Encourage your sales and marketing managers – and your agencies’ creative teams -- to get out of the office and closer to the customer.

4 Tips for Branding Your Emails

Given the number of emails you send every day, we should all be email-writing experts, right?

There are so many bad emails (in content, tone, and messaging), I was pleased to see this simple list from David Silverman, author of "Typo: The Last American Typesetter or How I Made and Lost 4 Million Dollars."

Here are his tips for effectively differentiating yourself through branding your emails:

1. Ask for something. All business writing includes a call to action. Before you write your email, know what you're asking of your audience.
2. Say it up front. Don't bury the purpose of your email in the last paragraph. Include important information in the subject line and opening sentence.
3. Explain. Don't assume your reader knows anything. Provide all pertinent background information and avoid elusive references.
4. Tell them what you think. Don't use the dreaded "Your thoughts?" without explaining your own. Express your opinion before asking your reader to do the same.

5 Ways to Cut-Costs While Staying True to your Brand

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we were able to attend the presentation: “Cost-Conscious and User-Focused: Maintaining the Google Experience" at the 2009 Event Marketing Summit held at the Marriott Downtown Chicago. The presentation was given by Google’s Group Marketing Manager of Events, Lorin Pollack-Plato, who has more than 14 years of industry experience.

In 2004, Pollack-Plato was hired as the first event marketing professional at Google. She has been credited for building a team of people who collectively have found the perfect balance between a changing economic climate, the needs of the target audience, and the goals and objectives of events while staying true to the essence of the Google brand.

In her presentation, she shared her tactics on creating a meaningful and relevant brand experience, outlining 5 Ways to Cut-Costs While Staying True to your Brand:

1. Do as much as you can in-house, i.e. Do the work yourself

2. Create an experience around your brand using inexpensive details; Little touches go a long way

• Example: a simple branded cupcake

3. Find a negotiation tactic that works for you, and bid out pieces of an event; Do your research to make sure your vendors represent your brand well

• Try: eAuctions

4. Bring your brand to life however you can; Keep your core, and cut the fat

5. Be “scrappy”; Spend less, work harder without sacrificing quality results

Pollack-Plato also shared a few of her and her team’s proudest accomplishments, including this video that captured the iGoogle Artists Themes launch in New York:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HydsuXsaD8c

5 Steps In Trendhunting: presentation at 2009 Event Marketing Summit

The 7th Annual Event Marketing Summit was held this week in Chicago. I was able to attend along with Melissa Strebing and Michelle Travis from STINSON's corporate communications team.

The summit has always been a great source of ideas ranging from how to leverage new trends and tools to amplifying reach and prioritizing marketing objectives. This year was no different - and included several informative breakout sessions - one in particular presented by Lorin Pollack-Platto, Event Marketing Director for Google, on ways to be cost-conscious and user-friendly when planning events.

A highlight of the event was the luncheon keynote presentation. Jeremy Gutsche, founder of Trendhunter.com and innovation expert was there to give advice on being Cool and going viral with your brand.

"Popular is not cool. Cool is the next big thing."

To find the next big thing you must start by Trendhunting.

Here are the 5 steps in Trendhunting:

1. Reset your expectations

· There's no point innovating if you think you already know the answer - avoid your bias

2. Observe your customers

· In all industries, innovation starts by observing customers. Observe customers in their zone by interacting with them, observing product use, and watching the purchase.

3. Hunt for cool

· Get inspiration by hunting for cool. Ex: Trendhunter.com

4. Cluster Insights Into Trends

· Cluster the cool trends, and then re-cluster. That's how to unlock insight.

5. Develop a Point of View

· Identify how to act upon your new trend.


For Jeremy's complete presentation, watch his YouTube video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMHbm8me7tU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ejeremygutsche%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

53% of senior marketing execs say event marketing is "the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships" with customers

While marketers are getting more tech-savvy, it seems they still have a soft spot for good old-fashioned event marketing.

According to the EventView 2009 survey, more than half (53 percent) of 300 senior marketing executives say event marketing is the discipline that best accelerates and deepens relationships with target audiences.

The survey was completed earlier this month by George P. Johnson, The MPI Foundation and the Event Marketing Institute. It included a healthy swath (41 percent) of marketers whose companies pull in revenues in excess of $1 billion.

This is reported today on http://www.brandweek.com/

More than a quarter (26 percent) of those surveyed said event marketing is the discipline that drives the greatest return-on-investment. "The economy is forcing marketers to elevate their game to survive, specifically in regard to deploying direct response marketing such as events to drive top-line performance," said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI.

Twenty-nine percent of marketers will transition their strategy from event marketing to experience marketing in the next 12 months. The difference being that experience marketing "involves integrated live and online experiences that drive deep brand interaction through highly relevant story telling and brand immersion," per the study. A third of those polled said they already made the switch.

The findings underline two trends coming together at the same time, said David Rich, SVP of Strategic Marketing/Worldwide for experience marketing agency George P. Johnson. "First, a downward economic spiral that is forcing brands to invest in channels like events that demonstrate measurable ROI; and secondly the maturation of strategic event and experience marketing, which takes the strategic, creative, media and digital capabilities of above-the-line marketing and activates them through the on-the-ground execution of an event portfolio made up of different types of internal and external events."

Despite the need to watch spending, marketers are increasingly ponying up to green their events. Sixty-six percent of those polled said they plan on implementing or have already added green initiative-up from 32 percent in 2007.

Of that group, 44 percent are doing so because of a corporate mandate. Green spending makes up 13 percent of their events budget.

Overall, "the real challenge for brands in 2009 will be how to best balance their traditional budget allocations against these trends to drive measurable results," said Rich.

My company, STINSON Brand Innovation, recently released a new white paper for pharma and medical brand marketers entitled, Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing.”

This newest white paper features case studies from the 2008 Experiential Marketing Summit and applications of key learnings for health, science, and technology brands. The white paper covers the following areas for creating a brand experience through event marketing:

· Top 6 Steps to a Successful Event
· Building Brands One Touchpoint at a Time
· Creating High Touch, High Volume Events
· Transforming the Tradeshow Portfolio
· Rewriting the Rules of Event Marketing
· Developing an Event Measurement Dashboard

Increased competition in the event marketing arena has lead us to find new and innovative ways of expanding the brand experience for our health, science, and technology clients’ brands. We apply the learnings from the Summit each year to our own case studies in hopes of making a bigger impact each time we participate in a new event.

This Brand Experience white paper not only includes mentions of case studies from well-known companies speaking at the Summit, but also provides charts, worksheets and tactics to help guide the audience in the steps it takes to create brand experiences at any type of event.


The white paper is available for free download at http://www.stinsonbrandinnovation.com/brand_thinking.htm

New White Paper, “Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing”

My company, STINSON Brand Innovation, just released a new white paper for pharma and medical brand marketers entitled, “Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing.”

The white paper is available for free download at www.stinsonbrandinnovation.com/news2.htm. This newest white paper features case studies from the 2008 Experiential Marketing Summit and applications of key learnings for health, science, and technology brands. The white paper covers the following areas for creating a brand experience through event marketing:

· Top 6 Steps to a Successful Event
· Building Brands One Touchpoint at a Time
· Creating High Touch, High Volume Events
· Transforming the Tradeshow Portfolio
· Rewriting the Rules of Event Marketing
· Developing an Event Measurement Dashboard

Increased competition in the event marketing arena has lead us to find new and innovative ways of expanding the brand experience for our health, science, and technology clients’ brands. We apply the learnings from the Summit each year to our own case studies in hopes of making a bigger impact each time we participate in a new event.

This Brand Experience white paper not only includes mentions of case studies from well-known companies speaking at the Summit, but also provides charts, worksheets and tactics to help guide the audience in the steps it takes to create brand experiences at any type of event.

Developing an event measurement dashboard at Nortel

“Ahhh, the poetry of metrics,” said Ken Pierannunzi began his presentation, declaring that ROI is quickly going from a need-to-have to a have-to-have. That means marketers need to institute tight measurement protocol immediately.

Ken is the director of global events strategy and measurement at Nortel. At the Experiential Marketing Summit a team from StinsonGEM attended, he offered the latest insights on creating an event measurement dashboard. Plus, he provided specific intelligence into what other marketers can do to produce robust ROI system.

On the surface, defining event metrics seems easy. Metrics can answer the basic questions of “Did we meet the objectives?” and “Did we change perceptions?”

But even greater value can be created when metrics are used short-term to plan future events and longer-term to develop professional competencies for event marketers.

To be most effective, Ken says results and reporting to the brand teams must be quick – at best real time but at least within 24 hours of the event. The report should include photos and narrative along with the numbers.

Here’s a look at the metrics that used to be considered good enough, contrasted with the new standards in an event measurement dashboard:

TYPICAL OLD WAYS OF MEASURING EVENT SUCCESS
-Company execs were happy
-Attendees said it was well-received
-It came in under budget

EXAMPLES OF NEW STANDARDS IN EVENT MEASUREMENT
-“return on objectives”
-# meetings with target customers
-# booth visits from A-level prospects
-# leads reporting intent to trial

The sources of event metrics can be varied, and include convention leads analysis, badge scans, in-booth surveys, post-show surveys, sales conversion analysis, field lead tracking, press coverage, customer meetings, and sales meetings.

Ken offered the tip to standardize survey results to make them simpler to compile and track over time. He also reminded the group that these kinds of metrics should not be considered market research, but only event effectiveness.

There are a number of ways to use the dashboard. In addition to presenting to marketing executives and the rest of the brand team, results can be applied to training the convention booth staff on event objectives – especially on how to quality leads and disengage from non-influencers.

At Stinson, we like to start with the end in mind. That means working with you to determine the metrics of an event at the beginning of the creative process.

We’ve just published a new white paper entitled "Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing: Case studies from the 2008 Experiential Marketing Summit and applications of key learnings for health, science, and technology brands." You can download it free at: www.StinsonBrandInnovation.com

5-part formula Microsoft is using to rewrite the rules of event marketing

Quite possibly the world's largest spender on event marketing, Microsoft is becoming a marketing juggernaut by transforming its event and trade show portfolio into a turbocharged, experiential machine.

Local, regional, national and global events are being mixed and matched into super-relevant engagement platforms. The fusion of event delivery and digital technology has never been more urgent. And live marketing is being measured more than ever before, showing Microsoft what's working and why.

Jeff Singsaas is general manager of event marketing at Microsoft. We from Stinson Brand Innovation recently attended a meeting with Jeff, and he offered a taste of where the event industry is headed, from the redeployment of dollars to portfolio analysis to measurement and professional development.

Jeff imparted this 5-part formula for winning events:
1. A stable team of really good business people
□ To increase consistency of execution
2. Making sure everyone is clear and accountable
□ To navigate account and budget
3. Process focus
□ To remove variation and duplication
4. Clear roles & responsibilities
□ To improve communication and accountability
5. Great business acumen
o To track budgets & metrics

From his vantage point at Microsoft, Jeff sees a trend toward digital events being added to the marcom mix. This means pairing tactics from the e-world to leverage traditional media – all in the context of successful meeting promotions and management.

Some examples include:

Traditional Media
Radio
Referall cards
Television
Print ads
Events and trade shows
Press releases
Direct mail
Newspapers

Digital Media
Podcasts
Social Networking
Streaming Videos
Banner ads
Virtual events
Blogs
Email
RSS

Given this trend, he presented four cornerstones of great marketing in this digital space:

□ a clear value proposition of what the customer wants and needs.
□ a more connected sales and marketing effort.
□ a definable business strategy with goals and objectives for the events.
□ storytelling that can make the message more compelling for customers.

Creating “the show that never ends” also means designing digital event tactics that can build anticipation, deepen the interaction, extend the experience, and magnify the impact beyond the venue.

Building anticipation means appealing to participants’ excitement and curiosity. Pre-meeting communication can provide practical information that address concerns. In this phase, one must avoid over-promising and under-delivering.

Deepening the impact means creating more relevant and meaningful interactions with customers. Planners should use technology as a means to this exchange, not simply having some gadgets in the meeting.

Extending the experience after the meeting can be accomplished in many ways using CDs, custom websites, and downloadable photos.

Magnifying the impact of an event helps leverage the investment in any convention, sales meeting, or customer event. Examples are posting meeting content online, hosting a keynote presentation in a virtual space, or even broadcasting live from an exhibit booth with updates from the show. Blogging from breakout groups is another common technique.

We’ve just published a new white paper entitled "Creating a Quality Brand Experience Through Event Marketing: Case studies from the 2008 Experiential Marketing Summit and applications of key learnings for health, science, and technology brands." You can download it free at http://stinsonbrandinnovation.com/news/WP41BrandExp2_1008.pdf