Posted by Todd Buckton on Tue, Feb 23, 2010
Today's View from the Cab is from PMG Master Driver Dave who just finished a trip from California to Denver for the next leg of a mobile tour for a valued healthcare client. The photos he took are just west of the Vail pass. Dave said he just missed a huge storm that dumped lots of snow on Denver and the local ski areas.
Not only are these beautiful photos but they are a perfect way to show why mobile tours are a great way to get your product in front of people who want to buy. Multiple large scale gatherings like trade shows continue to fade in importance in the minds of decision makers. Decisions like increased travel costs, better online communication technology, inconvenience to attendees and a general desire to stay closer to home looms large with your core audience. That's why mobile tours are such a great way to break through the clutter. Take your product to where the decision makers are and make it easy for them to be bowled over by your incredible product. Make it easy for them to experience your product and you make it easy for them to buy your product.
Dave left Denver and is now in beautiful Minot, ND showcasing our client's product to prospects and customers who don't have to go far to be impressed by their offering. And at less than 100 miles to the Canadian border, the weather is lots worse in Minot than it is in Denver this time of year, but our client has made it easy for their prospects to experience an excellent product. We battled the elements. We brought it to them. Another great reason to use mobile tours to Drive The Brand Experience.
All photos by PMG Driver Dave Christenson
Posted by Todd Buckton on Fri, Jan 22, 2010
This entry into the RoadBlog Mobile Event Hall of Fame looks good, smells good and serves up great-tasting brats. That in itself is cause for admission into this Hall of Fame (see previous Hall of Fame entry), but the Johnsonville Big Taste Grill is an experiential delight.
With tongue placed firmly in brat-filled cheek, Johnsonville has stirred that primordial part of every male's brain that craves meat grilled over an open fire. A tanker truck converted into a giant grill that Johnsonville provides gratis for events (you buy the brats...). It's a grill disguised as a giant brand experience.
People take their pictures in front of it. It gets lots of press and it gets smiles wherever it goes. And wherever it goes there's a brat waiting.
What's not to like?
Happy guy with Blue Shirt photos by Ed Kohler on Flickr
Posted by Todd Buckton on Fri, Jan 15, 2010
Straight Frame 53' Transport
One of the best things about mobile event marketing is the amazing number of variables available. There are so many different types of transports it's difficult to keep track of them all. But you've come to the right place here at RoadBlog, because during this series, we'll tell you about all kinds of transports and all of the variations therein. And then we'll get into customization. When we're done, you'll be better prepared to Drive Your Brand Experience. You'll see that your imagination is the only limit to what can be done with a mobile tour. So let's get started.
The most common transport for mobile tours is the 53' transport. It is also the most common transport you see on the highways and byways of America. The Coke truck above is a typical 53' transport. It's called a straight frame because it's a straight box. Notice on the Coke photo how the box is above the wheels and straight. A typical straight frame transport is 53' long, 8.5' wide and 8' high, giving you around 450 square feet of floor space and about 3600 cubic feet of display space. Keep those numbers in mind, because it just gets bigger and better.
Single Drop 53' Transport
After the straight frame comes a single drop. We included a photo of a flatbed transport here because it more easily shows how the transport drops down below the level of the wheels allowing for a taller load. What that drop means for a custom transport is more cubic footage inside the display, and a taller ceiling height for your display and your prospects making for a more comfortable experience.
Double Drop 53' Transport
Now things start to get interesting for Driving The Brand Experience. Here is a double drop 53' transport. Notice how far the floor drops down compared to the single drop. And then compare it to the Coke truck at the top. Now imagine how we can start to create some excitement with a transport this size. The double drop transport without further modification is as big as it gets. But that further modification is exactly what we'll talk about in our next chapter of Which Mobile Tour Transport is Right for You?
Straight Frame Photo via Flickr by Rick
Single Drop Photo via Flickr by alltheengineer
Double Drop Photo by our friends at Featherlite
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.
Posted by Todd Buckton on Fri, Oct 02, 2009
The recently published "Experiential Marketing" by Shaz Smilansky is an excellent overview of how experiential is poised for explosive growth as one of the most effective arrows in the brand marketer’s quiver. The book is available at a number of outlets including Amazon. It is a concise read, yet packed with information useful to newcomers as well as those well-versed in experiential.
Smilansky is co-founder of the London-based experiential agency Blazinstar and has spent her career providing clients with interactive experiences. Her book outlines the strategies and tactics necessary to successfully create and execute an interactive campaign.
Chapters include information on setting objectives, determining strategies and bringing the message (and the brand) to life. In what I think are the most important chapters of the book, she details how to measure and evaluate results for the best possible ROI. It is generally agreed that experiential provides faster ROI than traditional forms of promotion, and Smilansky details the steps necessary to achieve this goal.
“Experiential Marketing” is a compendium of worthwhile information that should be found, dog-eared and well worn, on the shelves of many a brand marketer looking for a proven method to more fully connect brands with consumers. Smilansky is to be commended for this approachable guide.
Posted by Todd Buckton on Thu, Sep 24, 2009
The first in our series of Hall of Fame Mobile Tours is the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. For over 70 years - repeat: 70 years - Oscar Meyer has promoted their hot dogs in a way that guarantees both a smile and continued strong brand recognition from anyone who happens upon it. This particular picture, taken by Wisconsin photographer Philip Landowski, is an excellent juxtaposition of two visual icons: the cool, spiky Quadracci Pavillion of the Milwaukee Art Museum designed by Santiago Calatrava and the curvaceous, mouth-watering Weinermobile, designed by Oscar Mayer's nephew, Carl. Traveling the country spreading joy, corporate goodwill and mustard, this mobile tour certainly deserves to be in any Mobile Event Hall of Fame, even when it is involved in a mishap as it was earlier this summer in Mt. Pleasant, WI:
Luckily, the only injury was pride in this minor collision with a house (is there an opportunity for PMG to help with driver training?). As you can imagine, having this kind of brand exposure on the road since 1936 has given Oscar Mayer a mobile tour that has become a classic. To say nothing of the fact that the ROI on this mobile tour has been incalculable. For those carnivores who want to learn more about our first installation of the RoadBlog Mobile Tour Hall of Fame visit the Corporate Weinermobile page at Oscar Mayer, or there's also a great blog entry by a true fan.
Photo Credit: AP
Posted by Todd Buckton on Fri, Sep 11, 2009
Are you looking for a way to connect with prospects who are ready to buy your product? Would you like to see top line results more quickly than you see with traditional media? Recently we published an eBook that helps explain why mobile tours are an excellent spend of the marketing dollar: they provide positive ROI more quickly than traditional forms of media. Time and time again we have seen that clients who embark on a mobile tour quickly achieve positive results while they benefit from putting their products and services directly in front of interested prospects. In an increasingly cluttered marketplace, the ability to position your brand in a controlled environment that allows your prospects and customers to experience your brand to its fullest is key to success. To see how Promotional Management Group can help you Drive Your Brand Experience with our latest ebook, click here.