Posted by Todd Buckton on Wed, Nov 04, 2009
Here's the top five picks for this week:
1. Max Lenderman commented on a Business Week article about the blur between above and below the line ad spending. Read his blog here. Max is a senior CD for GMR in Chicago and has a great pair of lenses with which to see the world of experiential.
I have not read his latest book, but I can tell you without reservation his previous book "Experience the Message" is worth a buy. Check it out. Both photos from his blog.
2. Who is Jeff Eggen? Once again this week, Ford is getting lots of press on the great experiential promos they're doing to sell cars. I wrote about Ford's Football Sunday Taurus promo here. This time it's a social networking car rally in the new Ford Fusion. Read about it in Wired here. These promos are getting lots of ink for Jeff Eggen, the Ford Experiential Marketing Manager. So either he's got a great in with the Ford PR machine, or his work is selling cars. I'll bet it's the latter. Logo from Ford.
3. Ian McGonnigal works for George P. Johnson and has an excellent blog that I recently started following. His entry this week about the importance of blogging and the entire blogosphere is certainly worth taking the time. Not only for promotion about your firm, but more importantly, how to use social media to effectively promote events. Great reading. Image from his blog.
4. I'm passionate about ROI and ExpM, a new measurement firm opened this week to provide just that. Whether you're an advertiser or an agency wanting more reliable means to determine effectiveness of a promotion this may be an answer. I spent quite a bit of time perusing their website; it's definitely worth a look. I'm going to try and use it in an upcoming tour. Logo from their site.
5. The last item is not necessarily experiential but it is useful; Seth Godin's blog. I find something of value every time I visit. I'll leave you with one that was particularly good this week: "Big ideas are little ideas that no one killed too soon."
Photo from Seth's blog.
Posted by Todd Buckton on Tue, Oct 20, 2009
At the risk of dating myself, I remember when Ford's ad slogan was "Ford Has a Better Idea". It was in the 60's, and it was thought that an appeal to younger buyers could be achieved with this new campaign. Now I think Ford does have a better idea to sell more cars: Instead of hoping the prospect goes to the dealership to look at a car, bring the car to the prospect.
In a novel take on direct marketing, Ford teamed up with houseparty.com to sponsor over 1,000 parties for around 22,000 people during football Sunday last week to promote the newly designed Ford Taurus. Each party featured "Party Packs" with banners, thunder sticks, and DVD's with football greats extolling the virtues of the new Taurus. Plus, a new Taurus was delivered to each party by a local dealer for test drives. Acceptance for the parties was driven by a contest to award a new Taurus for the event that received the most votes online, integrating the event into an internet environment as well. This innovative promotion was capably brought to fruition by Jeff Eggen, Experiential Marketing Manager for Ford.
And what did the promotion do? It put the car into the hands of people who could buy during a positive, fun experience. They got to see the car, touch it, sit in it and drive it in a relaxed atmosphere. Ford brought the experience to a prospect and made it easy to convert them to a brand advocate. Ford has enough confidence in their product that if they can get people to experience it, they will be more apt to buy it. It's all a numbers game: the more people that see it and drive it, the more Ford will sell. And as a Ford official said of the novel way to promote their cars: "This is a very efficient way to generate test drives."
The same is true for mobile event marketing. Amazing things can happen when you bring a well-positioned product to a qualified prospect and deliver a memorable experience. This connection is why mobile tours deliver positive ROI faster than traditional methods of promotion. You can read more about this great Ford promotion at the Detroit Free Press.