Your bank is a coffee shop, your favorite fast food spot is a hotel, and you can buy the hottest sneakers and get a hot dog in the same place. In a quest for deeper interactions with consumers, brands are launching campaigns well outside of their usual toolkit. It’s understandable. It can be tough for brands to compete with screens even though 65% of US consumers find a positive experience hosted by a brand more influential than great advertising. We’re in a moment where creativity equals currency and a few brands are cashing in.
65% of US customers find a positive experience hosted by a brand more influential than great advertising (PWC, 2018)
Interactive Events
We talked about fashion borrowing a page from the sneaker community with high end shoe drop events but Johnny Cupcakes has turned the product drop into a challenge, sending raving fans on the hunt for ice cream trucks filled with limited edition Johnny Cupcakes products. Clues distributed via twitter build social intrigue as they guide people closer to the mobile pop-ups.
On the flip side, brands like Casper and Juicy Couture have been tapping into Refinery29’s highly interactive 29Rooms experience. Since 2015, 29Rooms has brought adults together around art, activism, dance, play, and exploration – creating worlds of boundless creativity that food and retail brands contribute to by way of interactive on-brand Partner Rooms. Bitten, Prudential, and Panera Bread are a few of the latest brands to have a presence, creating rooms with Instagram-worthy backdrops, puzzles, and group challenges.
From Product to Service
Household goods behemoth, P&G, took cleaning matters into their owns hands by turning one of their largest, most recognized brands, Tide, into a service that shows the power of the product. By 2020 P&G plans to have 2,000 app connected Tide Cleaners open in the U.S. where patrons can conveniently drop-off articles, not only for dry cleaning, but wash, dry, and fold services. That’s right, folded too. The service 24-hour drop-off kiosks and pickup lockers as well on-campus delivery in some areas.
The launderettes create an accessibility to and activation of the product brand outside of the supermarket shelf.
Gamification
In a tie in with Major League Baseball playoffs and the World Series, Adidas and Dick’s Sporting Goods have sponsored the first Snapchat video game that also just so happens to also users to purchase products right from the mobile game.
The 8-bit home run derby game, called Baseball’s Next Level, features new limited-edition cleats from Adidas with designs reflective of the 80s video game era (more here). This isn’t the first time Adidas has incorporated game culture into their marketing. Professional gamer, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, signed a sponsorship deal with Adidas over the summer, making him the first individual e-sports star to sign with an apparel brand.