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Yahoo Ripples of Kindness- The Best Promo I’ve Ever Worked

Posted in Experiential Marketing, Promotional Events with tags , , , , , , , on December 27, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

What is better than kindness during the holiday season? Promoting it. Yahoo! is running a campaign called Ripples of Kindness. The idea is that everyone who does a good deed can inspire others and cause a ripple effect of kindness. The more people who join in, the larger the ripple will become. As Yahoo! says, this is “how good grows”.

To promote this cause, Yahoo! surprised people in cities across the U.S. right before Christmas Eve with an act of kindness. In Boston, the Yahoo! promotion team surprised consumers at a locally owned toy store called Magic Beans. We were given $6,000 to pay for people’s purchases when they got to the register. Up until the money ran out, every person who came to the cashier was told that their purchase was a gift from Yahoo!, and in return we asked that they repay the favor with an act of kindness. People were completely caught off guard, and the reactions were incredible.

For a taste of what a magical day it was, check out this video:

This was the ultimate experiential campaign because it left people with a contagious happy and thankful feeling. To join in on the goodness, be sure to add your act of kindness to kindness.yahoo.com

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The Art of Communication

Posted in General Marketing with tags , , , , , on October 27, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

When you have about 5 seconds to stop a person in their tracks and have them listen to you, the right non-verbal and verbal communication skills are crucial. By working events and promotions over the years, I have gained vast amounts of insight into what works and what doesn’t work. What I’ve discovered over and over is that it is all about positive energy.

  • Being aggressive doesn’t work. When you are overly aggressive, you look desperate. People want to feel as if they are making their own decisions and not being forced to listen to you. People don’t want to feel threatened. Instead of being aggressive be approachable and amiable.  Be confident but not aggressive
  • Along the same lines, people don’t want to be hassled. Everyone is busy, and nobody wants to feel like they are being conned into spending money. Instead of hassling someone, simply be a person they want to talk to.
  • Smile. This is probably the simplest thing to do. It will not only make you feel better, it will attract others to you.
  • Look as if you are having fun. People want to be around happy people. If it looks like you are having fun, people will subconsciously think that if they talk to you, they will be having fun as well.
  • Develop a general interest in people. What better way to look as if you are having fun than by actually having fun. People are generally  interesting, funny and exciting. Cherish the fact that you work in a field where you can interact with people all the time.
  • Don’t act as if it’s a big deal if people don’t want to talk to you. Sometimes, no matter what, some people just aren’t going to want to talk to you. Simply smile and let them be on their way. Other people are watching you and will notice how you react.
  • Emit warmth. When you think positively about people, it shows. Don’t be afraid of people and develop a feeling of warmth.

The most important communication tool is trust. How can you get someone you don’t even know to trust what you’re saying and listen to you? ..by emitting positive energy. When you think positively, everything else will follow. Your body language, tone of voice and your general demeanor are all extremely important but they will take care of themselves if you think positively and are sure of yourself.

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Campbell’s Soup Promotion- Brand Repositioning

Posted in Experiential Marketing, Promotional Events with tags , , , , , , on October 25, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

A little while ago I worked on an experiential event for Campbell’s Soup. Rather than marketing the soup itself, Campbell’s repositioned them self by marketing the fact that you could cook with Campbell’s Condensed Soup. The event was quite different from most sampling events because the event staff made roast beef sandwiches out of a mobile branded truck with a full kitchen inside. The event was half guerrilla, and half of the spots were planned. We passed out samples of the sandwiches along with recipes to people on the streets of Boston.

Brand repositioning is an extremely challenging tasks. Changing a consumers view on a brand is harder than getting the brand in their head in the first place.  Using an experiential event to reposition a brand is a good idea because it gives consumers direct contact with the “reposition”.  Also, Campbell’s went about it the right way by broadening their reach rather than trying to change the view of existing consumers. By repositioning, Campbell’s also differentiated them self from competitors.

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Electro and Tonic. Com

Posted in General Marketing, Social Media Marketing with tags , , , , , on October 25, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

My blog posts and tweets have not been as frequent lately due to the fact that I just co-launched a new blog, Electro and Tonic. While it is not experiential or even marketing related, it is giving me the opportunity to further my social media marketing, SEO, and even experiential marketing skills.  The blog is purely a hobby and it focuses on electronic music as well as local venues and events. This just goes to show you that no matter what you are working on, even if it is just a hobby, marketing is a part of it in order to grow.

If any of my followers are interested in electronic music be sure to check out the new blog and follow Electro and Tonic on Twitter @electroandtonic

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The Cosmopolitan Hotel Experiential Promotion

Posted in Experiential Marketing, Promotional Events with tags , , , , , , , on October 6, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

The Cosmopolitan Hotel is an independent hotel that is opening up in Las Vegas in December. The $3.9 billion hotel and casino will feature condo-style rooms; a differentiating factor in Vegas.

The experiential campaign consisted of a plexiglass structure that gave attendees the “Cosmopolitan experience” as they were able to get a feel for what the rooms would be like as well a deck on top which mimics either the pool area or the porches attached to most of the rooms.

This particular promotion took place at the PGA Golf tour and was the only promotion of its kind at the event. Weather helped out the impact of the promotion, as the hotel –room structure was air-conditioned inside and the heat was unbearable.  During the event we passed out ice cooled aroma therapy towels as well as fans and wristbands. On the fans and inside the wristbands, there was a code that attendees could text to enter to win a VIP stay at the hotel.

What I found most effective about this promotion was that when the attendees entered the mock hotel room there was a couch area where they could sit and talk to representatives from the hotel and get as much information as they wanted about it. There was no selling involved, so nobody felt pressured when they were inside.

Overall, I would rate the promotion as a success.  It can be tough to market a hotel to another market during an event since it is intangible at that point. However, creating an atmosphere and a user experience is the best way to go in my opinion.

Will differentiation and the marketing efforts put forth make much of a difference when opening up a luxury hotel in an area that has arguably been hit the hardest by the recession? I guess we shall see..

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Jack Morton’s Brand Camp

Posted in Experiential Marketing, General Marketing with tags , , , , , , on August 23, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

I was recently fortunate enough to attend Jack Morton’s Brand Camp in Boston. The event was a day-long educational event on experiential marketing and branding. The day consisted of presentations from employees on the importance of experiential, examples of Jack Morton’s work and a group session where we teamed up and created a campaign for a brand we thought needed help.

Brand Camp was not only extremely beneficial for the attendees but it was also beneficial for Jack Morton as an agency . They successfully created the kind of experience that they claim to (and do) create for their clients for us, the next generation of marketers. There aren’t many marketing agencies out there, if any, that put efforts into influencing emerging marketers. This is key because how can you be “the best marketing agency” unless other marketers think of you as such?  An interesting , creative and effective approach taken by Jack Morton.

Key points made at Brand Camp:

  • Experiences trump all in quest for meaning & happiness.
  • Simple can be better when it comes to branding
  • To be successful a brand must connect & interact
  • Experiential marketing is not just event marketing. Experiential is your experience with the brand through the journey.
  • Jack Morton looks at brands as verbs
  • Great advertising for a bad brand isn’t going to help
  • Marketers used to have control but now the consumers do. Marketers have become orchestrators.
  • Brands should never confuse,ignore,break brand promise or try to be something they aren’t
  • Brands that are successful understand their audience, take risks, have a “story” & broadcast commitment

Overall, I rate the event as a grand success. I learned, got the opportunity to network, gained insight into the agency and I now have an overall pleasant feeling for the Jack Morton Agency.

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Will Blackberry’s Experiential Marketing create Loyalty?

Posted in Experiential Marketing, Promotional Events with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

I recently read an article about how Blackberry users are running out of loyalty. The article stated that “while 89 percent of iPhone owners plan on getting another iPhone, and 71 percent of Android buyers plan to re-up, only 42 percent of BlackBerry owners plan to stick around”.

Around the same time I read that article, I was in the middle of working a month-long gig promoting Blackberry. The marketing that Blackberry has been doing recently is pretty unique and  it shows how Blackberry is trying to stretch their demographic and create brand loyalty. The two different promotions I was working were at the popular downtown bars in Boston as well as the Black Eyed Peas Tour. Both events, which were run by different marketing companies,  consisted of educating and encouraging Blackberry users to use BBM (which stands for Blackberry Messenger, a feature that is exclusive only to Blackberry). I found it interesting that Blackberry is extending their demographic to include young adults in a nightclub setting when their primary target has always been business professionals; a smart move in my opinion if Blackberry wants to keep up with the competition. I also found it interesting that Blackberry’s goal was to make sure their users become accustomed to using BBM. This is also a smart move because it will create loyalty and it is Blackberry’s biggest differentiation from other smartphones. Along with creating loyalty, the promotion of BBM will also encourage users to pressure their friends to get Blackberry so they can chat through the messenger.  The only fault with the marketing, in my opinion, was the timing. This type of extensive experiential marketing should have been done about a year ago, before the other competitors were launched. I think Blackberry realized they were losing loyalty a few months too late and could have held on to some of its younger users if these events were done earlier.

Some Pictures of the bar events.. More from the Black Eyed Peas events to come..

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Jean Paul Gaultier “Le Male” Promotion

Posted in Experiential Marketing, Promotional Events with tags , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

This past week I worked a promotion for Jean Paul Gaultier’s male fragrance named “Le Male”. It was clear that  the promotional event must reflect the brand values which were “luxury, daring and affection”. Therefore the event was held at  The Barbershop Lounge on Newbury Street in Boston which seemed  suitable due to location and the fact that it was a luxury barbershop. Boston was the only city that this event took place in due to its nautical association. This is key since the shape of the Le Male bottle is a man’s torso with sailor stripes. To further play on the sailor theme, we all wore sailor hats and striped shirts.

This promotion was a little different from the other promotions I have worked since it was for an upscale luxury item. For most promotions the goal is to reach as many people as possibly. However, the goal of this particular promotion was to reach the right demographic so the brand image could still be upheld. I think the event was successful at doing this due to the venue utilized as well as the private media parties that were held.

Some pictures from the event:

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Magic Hat Twitter Pub Crawl Marketing Success

Posted in Experiential Marketing with tags , , , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

Magic Hat successfully perfected the art of combining experiential marketing with social media with the Magic Hat Twitter Pub Crawl event that took place last week in Burlington VT.

In my opinion Magic Hat Brewery has some of the best beer marketing anyway, so when they were assigned as a client to my peers in my senior marketing class I didn’t think there was much that they could suggest that Magic Hat hadn’t already thought of themselves. However, the team pulled it off and created the idea that was the Twitter Pub Crawl.

The crawl consisted of having teams of 4 where at least one player had to have a Smartphone. There was one central meeting place and the Magic Hat Twitter account tweeted clues throughout the night on which bars to go.There was a twitter hashtag  as well so players could tweet about the crawl while they were doing it.  The clues were tricky riddles about the different bars around Burlington and players had to collect a receipt from each bar.   At the end, the teams had to come back to the meeting place with their receipts to see if they got them all right.  The teams who went to all the right bars were put into a drawing and the winning team won free plane tickets to anywhere Jet Blue flies.

The event was such a success because it was low-cost for Magic Hat,  money was raised for charity (it cost five dollars for those who participated and the participants got a T-Shirt and the money went to COTS)and a large amount of people were reached (38 teams of 4 participated and people followed the hashtag on twitter).

Everyone was a winner in the Magic Hat Twitter Pub Crawl including COTS, Jet Blue, everyone who participated (because it was so fun!) , the actual winners of the crawl and of course Magic Hat.

The combination of social media and experiential marketing is a powerful, low-cost marketing method that can be tricky to get right, but Magic Hat did it!

Pictures

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Memorable Experiential Campaigns

Posted in Experiential Marketing with tags , , , , , , on April 18, 2010 by caitlineoconnor

As many of those who work promotions know, there are those that are run properly and effectively and those that are just plain boring and ineffective.  There are only a handful of promotions that stand out in my mind as being highly effective. I would have to say the top promo that I have ever worked was Virgin Atlantic Airline’s 15th anniversary in Boston.  This was not your typical promotional campaign. It consisted of creating a “party” in the airport terminal for customers flying from Boston to London. The best part was that the customers had no idea this was going to happen and were utterly surprised when they received goodies, were greeted with music and made to feel like celebrities.  Not only did this increase brand loyalty by making existing customers feel important, but all the other people flying on other airlines that had terminals nearby probably felt a little envious of Virgin Atlantic passengers.

Another promotion that stood out in my mind was one I worked for The Boston Globe newspaper, which consisted of riding around to Boston’s hotspots in an ice cream truck and passing out the Boston Globe as well as free ice cream. Again, this was effective because of the surprise factor and getting free ice cream made a wide range of people feel good about the brand.

In my opinion, the best campaigns are not the ones that just influence possible new customers, but the ones that build brand loyalty with existing customers.

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