The most researched, documented, and comprehensive manifesto on experiential marketing.

As customers take control over what, when, why, and how they buy products and services, brands face the complete breakdown and utter failure of passive marketing strategies designed more than a half-century ago. To connect with a new generation of customers, companies must embrace and deploy a new marketing mix, powered by a more effective discipline: experiences.

Experiential marketing, the use of live, face-to-face engagements to connect with audiences, create relationships and drive brand affinity, has become the fastest-growing form of marketing in the world as the very companies that built their brands on the old Madison Avenue approachincluding Coca-Cola, Nike, Microsoft, American Express and othersopen  the next chapter of marketing. . . as experiential brands.

Using hundreds of case studies, exclusive research, and interviews with more than 150 global brands spanning a decade, global experiential marketing experts Kerry Smith and Dan Hanover present the most in-depth book ever written on how companies are using experiences as the anchor of reinvented marketing mixes.

Youll learn:

Marketers still torn between outdated marketing models and the need to reinvent how they market in todays customer-controlled economy will find the clarity they need to refine their marketing strategies, get a roadmap for putting their brands on a winning path, and walk away inspired to transition into experiential brands.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

In 2002, Kerry Smith (right) and Dan Hanover launched what would become the largest network of experiential marketing content in the world—a portfolio that includesEvent Marketer Magazine, the Experiential Marketing Summit, the Ex Awards, and the Event Marketing Institute. They are considered the world's foremost experts on experiential marketing—where it came from, how it's grown, why companies are using it and, what the future of marketing looks like. They have trained marketing teams at such companies as Procter& Gamble, Oracle, Mercedes, Cisco, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, Best Buy, Toyota, R.J. Reynolds, and many others.

KERRYSMITH learned about the evolution of marketing from the inside out, first as an advertising agency executive in New York City and then as a media entrepreneur who launched three marketing magazines and eight marketing conferences over three decades.

DAN HANOVER has led editorial teams at some of the most respected media companies in the world and is considered a trusted resource across the advertising industry, promotion category, retail sector, licensing arena, entertainment category, and experiential marketing industry.

Before We Begin ix

Chapter 1 The Rise of the Experience 1

The Experience R/Evolution 3

Recalibrating the Marketing Mix 7

The New Branding Frontier 14

Reference 15

Chapter 2 The Psychology of Engagement 17

The Science Behind Relationships 19

Learning Drives Understanding 24

References 24

Chapter 3 Developing an Experiential Strategy 25

Connection 26

Control 34

Content 42

Currency 49

Conversion 55

Strategy First 62

Chapter 4 Anatomy of an Experiential Marketing Campaign 63

Remarkable 63

Shareable 67

Memorable 73

Measurable 75

Relatable 77

Personal 81

Targetable 83

Connectable 85

Flexible 88

Engageable 91

Believable 95

Reference 98

Chapter 5 Digital Plus Live 99

Creating a Wired Experience 100

Connecting Online and Off 115

Chapter 6 Experience Design 117

Creating Living Stories 118

Building an Experience 120

Bringing Brands to Life 131

Chapter 7 Proving Performance and Measurement 133

Metrics That Matter 137

Building Your Performance Plan 141

The Power of Touch 144

Brands Making Headway 147

The Next Phase 149

Practice Measurement Discipline 150

References 153

Chapter 8 The 10 Habits of Highly Experiential Brands 155

The DNA of Experiences 156

Embracing Experiential 171

Chapter 9 The Vocabulary of Experiences 173

New Marketing Features, Functions, and Terms 174

Chapter 10 Converting to an Experience Brand 187

Step 1. Identify Your Fronts 187

Step 2. Find and Align Partners 188

Step 3. Select the Right Agency 189

Step 4. Fix Your RFP Process 190

Step 5. Beef Up Your Internal Teams 193

Step 6. Create Value 193

Step 7. Improve Lower-Funnel Results 194

Reference 195

Acknowledgments 197

About the Authors 199

Index 201