Be an Outsider at Work
October 16, 2019
Experiential is an opportunity to prove your brand’s promise by backing up your marketing messages with concrete action. Because, as we all know, actions speak louder than words — how brands act is infinitely more important than what they say.
This was evidenced in Jack Morton’s global Experience Brand Index. Experience Brands (meaning brands that harmonize the proof they deliver with the promises they promote) have a Net Promoter Score that is more than 200 percent higher and enjoy 25 percent higher customer loyalty. That’s pretty powerful. It’s also pretty simple when you think about it — people might not remember what you say but they will undoubtedly remember how you made them feel.
When you invest in connecting with people on an emotional level, you make a lasting impression. In the following Q&A with Jack Morton’s Shelley Elkins, learn how they won REGGIE gold for L.L. Bean through the power of experiential.
Q. What trends are you seeing when it comes to the investments brands are making in experiential marketing?
Brands make promises every day, and they spend billions pushing out messages around them. But they are finding that their actions and interactions are a stronger indicator of their brand health than what they say. As part of our research, we asked consumers whether they cared about how brands behave toward customers, employees and their communities. Across all geographies, more than three-quarters of consumers agreed that how brands act is important. Our research also showed that not only do they care about the way brands act, they reward them with their wallets. That’s one of the many reasons why traditional budgets are being re-allocated to enable brands to have more real-world interactions with consumers — helping them touch and feel the brand IRL, amplifying reach and igniting a sense of FOMO — all turning them into loyal customers who vote with their wallets.
Q. When did the concept for "Be an Outsider at Work" click for the team? What was that “aha” moment?
Our aha moment happened during the research phase when we found out that people’s number one barrier to getting outside is their job. When we learned that 95 percent of people’s time is spent indoors and 50 percent of that is at work, the opportunity jumped out at us. Why not bring work outside? And since the brief was to get more people outside, the solution became clear.
Q. What was your biggest challenge in bringing this idea/strategy to life?
Creating a fully functional workspace, outside. We wanted people to have access to all the amenities of an indoor office — meeting space, power outlets, Wi-Fi, etc. This wasn’t about creating a buzzy stunt. We wanted to change the way people think about what the outdoors can bring to creativity, productivity and overall happiness and to do that, we needed to really show up and deliver the goods.
Q. If given the chance to do it all over again is there anything you would do differently?
Hindsight is 20/20 but given the reaction we received, we would have worked to scale the experience in order to reach more people.
Q. What's the number one “lesson learned” your team has gained from this activation?
The power of good research, a strong brand purpose, and a simple idea combined with an existing cultural trend — in this case the rise of the collaborate co-working space. This magical combination truly met a need and created a really positive and powerful brand experience.
Q. What do the REGGIE Awards mean to you?
“We believe in the power of experiential to drive business results for our clients, so we appreciate that the REGGIE Awards celebrate the importance of brand activations in the marketing mix. Best of all, they celebrate the winning combination of big ideas and big results — that’s why there’s nothing like holding a gold cash register. It’s proof for our clients that the work we’re doing is making a difference.