From capturing the “tailwinds” of Olympic athlete influence to reimagining throwback trends to signing off on bold ideas, CMOs this year have backed strategies that are both revitalizing their legacy brands and jumpstarting their challenger brands — all thanks to live experiences.
Here, we round up perspectives and tips from six CMOs Event Marketer interviewed this past year about how they’re investing in and driving brand strategy with experiential.
Harness nostalgia to make experiences more meaningful, memorable and palatable.
“You’d be shocked at how color triggers nostalgia, because if you really think about it, your big life moments always have a color associated with them. Color’s just so personal, so emotional … For parents, or adults that were [at The Most Colourful Reunion Ever pop-up] on their own, it really did [evoke] nostalgia, and also the joy of revisiting those childhood memories and being able to have this moment in our crazy lives to have something that is positive, uplifting, emotional and a little time for yourself, even if it’s just a few minutes.”
—Victoria Lozano, CMO, Crayola
“The No. 1 challenge that we have with dairy-free cheese is that skepticism that dairy-free is going to deliver the same way that dairy cheese does. Tasting is believing, right? So, when you think about how people are addressing fears that they have about things, nostalgia plays such a critical role in putting people at ease. And as nostalgia is also very popular right now, the team came up with this idea of stepping back in time to a ’90s video rental store.”
—John Kelly, CMO, Daiya
Get creative with your sponsorship strategy to wow sports fans with unexpected activations, and engage athletes to amplify messaging.
“It is harder to do something bespoke. You have to show up with a little bit of creative thinking and a lot of ‘let’s see.’ A cookie-cutter approach is not something that I’m excited about, to put our brand as part of a logo soup. X Games allowed us to come in and create an amazing experience, everything from working with the actual athletes to branding the skate parks in a unique and creative way. We had a Cherry Limeade cup right in the middle of the skate park and also had the tailwinds of a lot of those athletes going to the Olympics … And so we want to be able to leverage that as much as we possibly can.”
—Ryan Dickerson, CMO, Sonic
“We’re hosting an exclusive Orangetheory workout the morning of the MLS All-Star Game, so that’ll be another way to engage the audience even more. At the MLS All-Star Skills Challenge, we have one of our brand partners, Ben Black, who is a really big ex-soccer player and brand ambassador for us, out there hosting and doing pre-event warm-ups to integrate our product into the energy of the event. Our brand is very socially led, so we always want to make sure we bring out our brand partners to talk about the event and have that radiation across social media.”
—Kyle Watson, CMO, Celsius
“It’s part of our story of being a growth-oriented challenger brand that we really need to build something that is bold and distinctive in a very crowded banking marketplace. So, we could do the traditional marketing approach, or we could take a step out of our own comfort zone. What I love about our new brand platform is how much creativity it elicits … to have these kinds of ideation moments. And you can imagine what that might have been like internally of trying to pitch the idea of dressing up a branch to make it look like a barber shop with hair … All of it was that element of intrigue, seeing the Dallas Stars players with their hockey hair and going the step further of now there’s something for you to experience.”
—Jenn Garbach, CMO, PNC
A stunt doesn’t have to be flashy. Playful, grassroots elements can be just as effective at boosting brand awareness and engaging the community.
“The vibe of the signs is mostly to raise awareness, but also it should be funny and encourage the marathon runners, because this is what the signs started from. So the whole spirit and inspiration behind this was to be part of the New York City community, encouraging the runners, but doing it in a fun way and doing it with rent [humor].”
—Lidor Bar David, Co-Founder and CMO, Openigloo
