Why Use Event Marketing Vehicles?

Forget conventional marketing campaigns. If you want your brand to do more than just momentarily grab consumers’ attention, then event marketing vehicles are the right choice for you. Customizing vehicles like airstreams, glass trucks, and food trucks to fit your brand needs are a guaranteed way of turning heads and more importantly, developing meaningful connections with your target audience. 

You may be wondering, how? Well, event marketing vehicles maximize the impact of brand activations by creating stand-out, multi-sensory experiences, whether that be through mobile showrooms, branded sampling, mobile marketing tours, demos, etc. Ultimately, how you choose to customize your promotional vehicle and design the consumer experience will vary depending on a slew of factors like your company, industry, target audience, and call-to-action. 

This is a significant part of the appeal: these vehicles can be tailored to meet any business goal. 

With a variety of options at your disposal (and to fit your specific needs), event marketing vehicles can bring your brand directly to the people with one-of-a-kind experiences that generate valuable content for social media as well as create meaningful audience engagement.

In this blog, we will look at the benefits of event marketing vehicles and give you some useful tips and tricks! 

Event Marketing Vehicles

BENEFITS OF USING EVENT MARKETING VEHICLES 

A mobile activation— that is, a brand activation utilizing an experiential or event marketing vehicle— is beneficial for many reasons.

First and foremost, branded vehicles are inherently attention-grabbing, so they get brands noticed quickly— but that’s not all they do. For instance, the mobility of a truck allows you to occupy unconventional and exciting locations to execute the perfect guerrilla marketing stunt. This results in an extra ‘wow’ factor, as walker byers stop to check out a promotional vehicle in an unexpected location. 

In the case of the recent mobile pop-up for Simon Schuster’s release of “It Starts With Us” by Colleen Hoover, we were able to surprise guests by activating near the iconic Rockefeller Center. 

Additionally, if your marketing campaign goes beyond just one day, then the transportability of a promotional vehicle means you can reach a wider audience, which results in a bigger bang for your buck than a traditional, stand-still pop-up. 

However, while all event marketing vehicles are effective means of capturing target audiences, each promotional vehicle has its own pros and cons list to consider.

Colleen Hoover "It Starts With Us" book release pop-up in Rockefeller Center

HOW OTHER BRANDS HAVE USED EVENT MARKETING VEHICLES

1. MOBILE MARKETING TOUR

To show Dietz & Watson’s love of the Eagles and feed their rowdy hometown fans during the playoff season, the brand created “Bird Dogs”: delicious Dietz & Watson beef franks topped with chopped long hots, provolone, and crunchy fried onions served in an Eagles green bun. 

For weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the Bird Dog truck made stops all over Philly to get fans excited, while of course, sampling their delicious food and creating positive brand association with the Dietz & Watson name.

Utilizing a food truck to give out a high-volume of free hot dogs, and even naming their event marketing vehicle “The Bird Dog Truck,” was a strategic marketing move by Dietz & Watson, capitalizing on Eagles’ winning streak to build consumer loyalty. 

2. Mobile Showrooms

Loungefly transformed a glass truck into a polka dot mobile showroom that celebrated their polka dot collection on the same weekend as National Polka Dot Day! Aside from the eye-catching exterior, the glass truck gave passerbyers clear view into the interior of the truck’s collection display, which was ultimately the focal point of the promotion. Inside the truck, guests had could enjoy a photo booth moment and free tea as they looked through the Disney collection, plus they had the chance to purchase items on the store as well as win discounts!

Mobile showrooms offer a fantastic opportunity to let your audience get an inside-look at your brand with see-through glass walls. 

3. STOREFRONT ATTRACTION

Airstreams are an American classic and a show-stopping, branded-backdrop, perfect for your next activation. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren has tried his hand at an eclectic mix of side-ventures, from “Ralph’s Coffee” to, more recently, “Ralph’s Hot Dogs.” At the brand’s flagship store on New York’s Upper East Side, a Christmas-themed Airstream trailer was stationed, providing hungry shoppers with a selection of “Ralph’s Hot Dogs” and “Ralph’s Caramel Corn.” This two-pronged approach of promoting their “street eats” to a built-in audience already shopping at their store created an effective marketing strategy.

Tips and Tricks to Launch Your Event Marketing Vehicle

There are plenty of ways to ensure when you invest in an event marketing vehicle, you’re getting your money’s worth. But, there are a few key takeaways to keep in mind.

Before booking an event marketing vehicle, make sure you:

  • Partner with an agency with proven experience. From planning and permits, to experiential staff and insurance, researching and hiring the right agency is crucial. 
  • Outline clear goals and what “success” looks like to you. Your brand’s activation continues long after the “day-of” event, so choose the right metrics to track, whether it be (ROI), or “click-through rate” (CTR). 
  • Merge a distinctive marketing strategy tailored to your brand’s needs with data and KPIs to measure success using hard numbers. Doing so keeps the marketing strategy conversation going far after the day(s) of your activation. 

TAKE YOUR SHOW ON THE ROAD

Event marketing vehicles offer the opportunity for brands to showcase their products (and themselves) on-the-street, close to events, inside festivals and trade shows, and directly where their target audience is. 

They provide an optimal opportunity to reach potential new customers, cultivate brand loyalty, and generate tens of thousands of brand impressions across traditional and social media. 

During Stonewall 50 – World Pride NYC, apparel retailer Zara and responsibly-sourced water company JustWater partnered to celebrate the event with a colorful, event marketing vehicle to attract attendees. 

Transforming a three-sided glass truck into a customized mobile showroom displaying a 3D Pride flag assembled from 9,000 multi-colored bottles of JustWater, Zara’s event marketing vehicle kept festival-goers hydrated with its rainbow selection of complimentary beverages. And, Zara and JustWater’s experiential marketing campaign translated into success online, with over one million impressions on social media worldwide.

Zara World Pride NYC Truck

Transform Your Next Experience With Event Marketing Vehicles

By bringing your brand to the streets with an event marketing vehicle, your brand creates a customized, unforgettable, in-person experience. When you think outside-the-box, you have access to a non-traditional platform that cuts through the noise, makes you noticed, your message heard, and leaves lasting impressions with not only your most loyal customers, but new ones as well.

Food Truck Promotion’s Event Marketing Vehicles

Here at FTP, we have plenty of different event marketing vehicles to choose from for your next event marketing campaign. Learn more about our services and contact us to get started.

 

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Leveraging Influencer Marketing to Maximize Your Impact

The pandemic has ushered in a new age of experiential with influencer marketing. At the crossroads of tech and social media, influencer marketing has brought branding relationships directly to consumers, no matter where they are. 

With so many people spending more time on their smartphones and tablets, as they work from home and limit outdoor social activities, influencers are organically engaging tens of millions around the world everyday. 

So, how can brands tap into this social media marketing shift and use influencers to execute successful experiential marketing campaigns? Check out these best practices, trends to watch, and examples of successful influencer marketing.

Product Sampling Activation

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on endorsements, product placements, and/or partnerships with key leaders who have a large and engaged audience that brands can tap into to build visibility, credibility, and even sales. In fact, 93% of marketers currently practice some form of influencer marketing. 

While technically in practice as early as the 18th century, it wasn’t until the 1930s when the idea of influencer marketing began to take shape – first in the form of fictional characters. The most memorable example (still in use today) is Coca Cola’s popularization of Santa Claus. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the beverage company reimagined the image of Old St. Nick to elicit feelings of cheer during what was, arguably, an otherwise miserable time for a majority of Americans.

Influencer Marketing Example

Fast-forward a few decades to the era of celebrity endorsements. Unlike fictional characters, real people with mass followings were able to convince an even larger segment of the consumer population to buy products they endorsed. Since his signing in 1984, Nike’s partnership with Michael Jordan helped turn the once scrappy footwear company into one of the largest, most valuable consumer brands in the world, while transforming the basketball legend into a global cultural icon (and netting him an estimated $1.3 billion in the process). 

However, by the early 2000s, the weight of traditional celebrity endorsements became less effective as consumers looked to influencers who were more accessible and relatable. Thanks to social media, influencer marketing as we know it today was born. From Facebook and Twitter, to Instagram and YouTube, the phenomenon of “regular” people who’ve accumulated millions of followers and billions of views with highly engaging content has led to brands leveraging that influence, trust, and authority to expand their own reach.

Michael Jordan Nike Influencer

Five Best Practices of Influencer Marketing

Especially if you’re not social media savvy, navigating the world of influencer marketing can be challenging. Let’s take a look at some best practices that’ll help your brand launch a successful campaign.

1. Know your goals and how to measure them

Whether building awareness, attracting a new target audience, or facilitating sales, investing the necessary resources to properly test and measure your influencer campaign as a viable channel is crucial to its success. 

2. Understand the influencer landscape

Expand your search beyond Instagram and Facebook and check out other platforms like Snapchat and Pinterest. The idea is to go where your target audience is active and capitalize on the influencers who are there with them. 

3. Find an influencer who aligns with your brand

No two influencers are cut from the same cloth. Making sure you partner with creators whose content and values are aligned with yours allows them to speak to your brand in an authentic way. 

4. Let your influencer do what they do best

While it makes sense to want to retain control, it’s important to give your influencer creative freedom. They’ve spent years cultivating their loyal following and understand the type of content that’ll attract them. Allowing them the flexibility to craft the right message will turn into successful conversions for your brand.

5. Review your campaign’s performance

From sales and website traffic, to awareness and generating content, if you’ve put in the effort to create an influencer marketing campaign, it’ll be a waste of everyone’s time if you don’t review its performance throughout. 

Three Influencer Marketing Trends to Watch

By 2022, the influencer marketing industry is set to nearly double to over $15 billion. As the landscape continues to evolve, it’s important to stay on top of these influencer trends to ensure your brand is getting the most out of its partnerships.

The rise of micro-influencers

While micro-influencers may not have the celebrity-type status of macro-influencers, they tend to have more personal relationships with their followers. Swedish watch company Daniel Wellington’s mix of both macro and micro-influencers has helped turn their brand into a booming $230 million global business.

Video content dominates

Utilizing experiential marketing’s most prized commodity: storytelling, video makes perfect sense for marketers to reach more people. This past Valentine’s Day, Dunkin’ sought out influencers to build their own DIY version of a bouquet of flowers using their heart-shaped donuts, helping to boost engagement rates and outperform traditional content across its own channels. 

Merging social media and live experiences

Hilton Hotels has long leveraged influencer marketing to attract younger generations. With its Hilton@Play initiative, Hilton opens up live events at its properties using influencers to promote concerts and live streams.

Hilton @Play

Grow and Expand Your Brand With Influencer Marketing

It’s a fact; influencers are here to stay. What’s changed in a short amount of time is how brands take advantage of their impact. Nevertheless, influencers have quickly become increasingly popular for brands to invest in. 

As the reach of social media continues to expand, boosting word-of-mouth marketing, influencers can help your brand connect with audiences, enhance awareness, boost conversions, and drive sales. Once you identify the right strategy and develop a solid plan, your brand can tap into the experiential power of influencer marketing.

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Safe Product Sampling for the Holiday Season

There’s no bigger season for product sampling than the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, where shoppers are anxious to “try before they buy” gifts for loved ones. 

A post-COVID world has created challenges for brands wanting to let consumers personally test their goods. But, there are new, creative, and safe ways brands can continue getting their products in-front of consumers.

Whether pre-packaged samples, contactless sampling, PPEs, practicing safe social distancing and more, it’s more than possible for traditional high-touch retail environments and events to adjust. And, this is the best time of year to do so. 

Let’s take a look at why product sampling still works in 2020 and how your brand can make the most out of an activation, without sacrificing customers’ safety and security.

Product Sampling Activation

Five Reasons to Choose Product Sampling

Product sampling is hardly a new concept, but there’s a reticence to giving anything away for free. Will the end result justify the time and cost of putting a team together and getting the product into consumers’ hands? Sounds like a tall order, but successful product sampling is easier to execute than you may think. Done right and your customer base will grow, making the effort well worth it. 

1. Product sampling is effective

It’s hard to argue with the numbers and product sampling is one of the best experiential marketing practices. In a 2015 report from Sampling Effectiveness Advisors, 73% of respondents said they were likely to buy a product after trying it.

2. Saves time and is cost-effective

Instead of taking the risk of officially launching a product that needs to be pulled back, creating costly corrections and negative PR, promotional product sampling saves time and money, ensuring you have a winning product before it hits the shelves.  

3. Reaches potential new customers

When you allow consumers to sample your product on their terms, you create a level of comfort that increases the prospect of winning over customers. Targeted product sampling also allows brands to focus on new demographics that may not be familiar with their product. 

4. Builds customer loyalty

Experiential marketing is a key component to securing long-term customers and product sampling is a powerful tool for brands to meet that goal. When consumers can try your product for free – and feel good about it – the positive association they take away will stay with them.

5. Receive valuable feedback

A key component to a product’s success is customer feedback. Letting your target audience sample your product along with having the ability to comment on it can weed out any opportunities that could potentially hold back the success of its launch.

Three Ways to Keep Consumers Safe

Traditional product sampling has long been a way for brands and retailers to introduce customers to new products. With enhanced precautions in effect around the world, product sampling is getting a makeover that puts a premium on safety, without trading in engaging and memorable experiences. 

Virtual sampling

Hit especially hard by the pandemic is the cosmetics industry, which relies heavily on in-store traffic and in-person product sampling. But, brands like Ulta Beauty, L’Oreal, and Estee Lauder have created virtual sampling tools, allowing customers to try on products for their lips, eyes, and hair without ever entering their stores. 

Dry demos

Brands that want to keep the “sampling experience” alive for consumers have turned to pre-packaged samples of dry goods that can be prepared at home. By utilizing brand ambassadors to talk to customers and also distributing coupons, consumers can still take products for a test drive without putting themselves at risk. 

Drive-thru and online samples

In an effort to entice more consumers toward alternatives to in-store shopping, some retailers are rewarding customers by offering free add-ons with online orders and samples for “drive-thru” or pickup orders.

Brands Reimagining Product Sampling

Several brands have taken innovative steps in an effort to adapt to the changing landscape of product sampling. Take Coca-Cola, for example. When Coca-Cola Energy debuted this past January, the soft-drink brand could hardly have anticipated the pandemic’s impact on existing marketing plans to introduce their new product to consumers, including in-store sampling. 

Yet, Coca-Cola adapted and leaned into the growth of online grocery shopping, as well as utilizing an element of “cause marketing.” Giving free samples of Coca-Cola Energy in customers’ online orders and donating the product to hospitals and first responders has led to a widespread trend, with a number of brands utilizing similar tactics that helped Coca-Cola capitalize on the marketing and sales of its newest product.

Kind Snacks Drone Delivery

Sometimes, humor is the best medicine during challenging times and KIND found inspiration earlier this year ahead of the release of its KIND Frozen Bars. With a dearth of in-person, summertime events, KIND held a unique contest for customers with lucky winners getting their very own samples delivered via trained bird, drone, and hot air balloon. 

Putting a humorous spin on the stay-at-home orders and its effect on the sudden ubiquitousness of “delivery,” KIND was able to drive the conversation on social media while building consumer loyalty with its quirky product sampling campaign.

You Can Still Try Before You Buy With Safe Product Sampling

The inability to conduct in-person, traditional product sampling has caused a ripple effect across many industries, but brands have found creative ways to still get samples in consumers’ hands. 

With the holidays just around the corner, now is the time to maximize your reach with consumers. As millions safely shop in-store and even more shopping online, there are plenty of ways to get your products noticed. All it takes is out-of-the-box thinking and always keeping safety in mind to ensure your next product sampling event is a crowd-pleasing success.

Food Truck Promotions

Want to learn more about product sampling? Explore our services and contact us today to get all of the information you need to get started with your mobile product sampling tour.

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Three 2020 Experiential Marketing Trends That Are Here to Stay

Throughout 2020, the experiential marketing industry has had to reimagine how it captures audience attention and engagement while redefining what successful experiences look like. 

But, necessity breeds innovation. And, experiences that are grabbing headlines, trending on social media, and winning over consumers have successfully adapted to today’s environment. 

Now is not the time to shy away from experiential, but to lean into it. Let’s take a look at three of the biggest experiential trends in 2020 that are imaginative, ingenious, and here to stay.

Drive-In Experiences: Reinventing a Retro Recreation

As the world continues to cope with coronavirus, the experiential marketing industry is looking ahead, by turning to the past. 

Drive-in theaters were once considered a novel throwback, a shout out to its heyday in the 1950s and 60s. But, that’s all changed in 2020. And, if you think about it, the idea is appealing on many levels. 

More than just a creative reason to leave the house, drive-ins automatically come with an added level of security. When you don’t have to leave the safety and comfort of your car, the fear of interacting in close contact with large groups dissipates. On the flip side, drive-ins still provide a sense of participating in a collective experience. You also can’t go wrong with the nostalgia factor of going to the drive-in. The comfort and consolation of enjoying a simpler time.

Van Gogh Drive In Experience

Toronto’s “Immersive Van Gogh” art exhibition didn’t begin as an event to be experienced in a car, but organizers quickly shifted to accommodate their response to the pandemic. Displaying some of theDutch painter’s most famous works through the use of light, sound, and high-resolution digital projections, 14 vehicles at a time can drive in, turn off their engines, and watch the 35-minute show from inside their cars.

Even as Canada has eased restrictions, “Immersive Van Gogh” is sticking with drive-in engagement. By figuratively “driving into the artwork” itself, organizers say visitors get a highly immersive experience that’s unlike any other installation in the world. 

Hybrid Experiences: The Best of Both Worlds

Hybrid experiences combine the best of face-to-face engagement and the exciting innovation of virtual technology. A hybrid event is essentially any event, whether a conference or workshop, trade expo or seminar, that combines live, physical components with digital, online elements. Think about an industry convention that launches an in-person conference and also live streams keynote addresses and breakout sessions to a worldwide virtual audience. 

While hybrid events have gained a lot of traction this year, as a way to mitigate the risks associated with coronavirus, they’ve been a mainstay throughout the 21st century. Look no further than Apple, arguably the pioneer for hybrid events. 

At the forefront of innovation and tech trends, it’s no surprise their annual events announcing latest products have pushed the envelope of industry conferences for well over a decade. Always making front-page news, Apple’s in-person “Special Events” have been live-streamed around the world since their inception in 2006. 

From Calvin Klein, the NBA, ASICS and more, brands throughout 2020 have harnessed the global reach of hybrid events to launch new products and capture the widest audience possible through the power of innovation and technology.

Tim Cook Apple

Brands Making In-Person Experiential Marketing Safer

The trend with the most far-reaching impact that will likely remain is making in-person events generally safer for attendees. Over the course of this year, brands and agencies have had to balance the protections and precautions needed without impacting an activation’s overall experience. 

This past Mother’s Day, WalMart reinvented their annual “Mom’s Appreciation Event” with a COVID-friendly twist. Featuring a unique “retailtainment” event at participating stores, drive-thru sampling and demo stations were activated to celebrate moms across the country, but in a safe and responsible way.

Whether continued social distancing, complimentary PPE, individually packaged swag or food and beverages, expect to see additional messaging in the future that’s health-conscious without feeling sterile, cold, and impersonal.

Walmart Mother's Day

The Future is Here With 2020’s Biggest Experiential Marketing Trends

Even amid the pandemic, experiential marketing remains popular with U.S. consumers. In a recent YouGov survey, nearly three-quarters of respondents agreed that engagement is key for brands to be successful. 

While nothing beats creating human connections that we can touch, see and feel, there are a variety of solutions to executing experiential marketing campaigns that are innovative, memorable, and rise to the challenges we face today.

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How to Target Generation Z and Millennials in Your Marketing Campaigns

Twitter Experiential Marketing

Capturing a staggering 64% of the world’s total population, Generation Z and Millennials are a generational force to be reckoned with, and marketing campaigns are armed with insights and strategies to capture these historically unique (yet once dismissed) demographics.

With over 100 million of them in the U.S. workforce and accounting for nearly 30% of the U.S. population alone, Generation Z and Millennials are the newest generations whose purchasing power demands attention by brands in the U.S. and around the world.

The same traditional marketing campaigns Baby Boomers and Generation X are accustomed to can be lost on Generation Z and Millennials. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram receive the most traffic from users between the ages of 18 and 29. 

Check out these tips to capture the hearts and minds of today’s most in-demand generations.

There IS a Difference

… And a big one. In fact, the biggest mistake marketers can make is assuming Generation Z and Millennials are one in the same. Millennials are population segments born between 1981 and 1996 and those born after are considered to be Generation Z. Think of it this way: Lady Gaga and Mark Zuckerberg are Millennials. Kylie Jenner and Billie Eilish are Generation Z. Treating “young people” (18 to 35 age-range) as a monolithic segment of the population is a marketing mistake. 

Most Millennials came-of-age during the “digital revolution,” but also remember a time before smartphones and Amazon Prime. While they crave authenticity, Generation Z values transparency, relatability, and personal connections even more. Those attributes are hallmarks of social media standards that dominate society and culture today.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese Promotion

The Power of the Influencer

Another noteworthy (and surprising) difference between Generation Z and Millennials is “the power of discounts,” because who doesn’t love “a good sale”? While 67% of Millennials polled by BusinessInsider in 2019 said they would visit a specific brand’s website to receive a promotion or discount, only 46% of “Gen Zers” said they would do the same.  

In the same poll, 71% of Millennials indicated that online marketing was a direct reason for purchasing an item, whereas only 59% of Gen Zers said online marketing had a similar effect.

So, what is a powerful marketing tactic that does work? Enter, social media influencers. In a report from Think With Google, 70% of Generation Z subscribers to YouTube said they view YouTube personalities like PewDiePie, Shane Dawson, and Mr. Beast as more relatable than mainstream celebrities. 

Harnessing the sway influencers have over their millions of fans (and billions of views) is a strategic marketing tactic brands can use to leverage their reach with a vast audience by being at the center of the cultural zeitgeist. 

Neil Patrick Harris Influencer Marketing

Brand Loyalty is a Thing of the Past

In previous years, having an identifiable and well-known “brand” meant half the battle was won when capturing a desired market share. In 2020 however, simply being ubiquitous isn’t enough for Generation Z and Millennials to open up their wallets. 

According to RetailDive, Millennials are traditionally more frugal than Generation Z, with some analysts suggesting the reason being a by-product of their experiences living through the Great Recession. Gen Zers on the other hand, are more willing to spend the extra cash on luxury brands. 

With both demographics hyper-aware of what motivates them to make a purchase, lower on that list is “brand loyalty.” Millennials and Generation Z gravitate toward brands that identify with their sense of independence and originality. 

In a study by Ernst & Young, less than half of Millennials and Gen Zers expressed they subscribed to “loyalty programs.”

Share Their Values

Much like Baby Boomers of the 1960s, Millennials and Generation Z are socially-conscious of the world around them and lean upon their values when making purchasing decisions. They expect brands to be aligned with those same values (i.e. environmentally-friendly, committed to LGBTQ rights, pro-gun legislation, etc…)

Marketing campaigns that engage with Millennials and Generation Z on an interpersonal basis and speak to their values, can create powerful messages that resonate with them on a deeper level and will capture their attention.

Zara Pride Brand Activation

Make Your Marketing Mark With Generation Z and Millennials

Representing the two largest generation demographics in the U.S., Millennials and Generation Z are the nation’s most powerful consumers bases and will be for years to come. As long as you cater to their wants, needs, and values now with marketing campaigns and strategies that appeal to them and who they are, you can develop long-term customer relationships that will lead to unlimited potential and growth for your brand.

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