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Unlike traditional advertising or passive promotions, brand activation services typically involve direct, experiential marketing strategies. This can include live events, product samplings, digital experiences and more. This article will help you understand how brand activation services bring a brand to life and why they are important.
Understanding brand activation services
Many brands rely on experiential marketing to drive consumer engagement. For example, beverage brands might sponsor a major music festival to reach a new customer segment. Then, social media amplification from the event could help extend its efforts even further.
Overall, brand activations excel when it comes to immediacy and memorability. They increase engagement, drive customer action, create brand awareness, generate buzz, and build long-term relationships with customers.
Different types of brand activations
Brand activation consists of several different approaches. For the purposes of this article, we are grouping them into five categories:
- Experiential marketing
- Promotional marketing
- Digital activations
- Retail activations
- Guerilla marketing
Learn More: Explore these brand activation examples in detail!
Experiential marketing
Effective brand activations engage consumers’ senses and emotions. By getting creative and combining experiential marketing with what you understand about your audience, you can ensure consumers remember your business long-term.
Your immersive, interactive experiential marketing opportunities include live events, pop-up shops, and brand experiences.
Take Red Bull’s Stratos event. The energy drink had Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of space in a highly publicized live event that not only captured attention but also aligned with Red Bull’s adventure-seeking brand identity.
Setting up a pop-up shop in a temporary space, typically for a short duration (and often with an element of surprise) is another great way to create excitement and drive urgency. For example, a pop-up featuring an immersive, themed environment (like a tropical escape for summer drink brands) is fun. This means that when consumers attend, they often link those positive emotions to the brand. Often these innovative spaces prompt positive social media activity too.
Creating an exclusive brand experience is another approach. For this type of experiential campaign, a brand creates a unique atmosphere and invites only select participants. Then, it gives guests an innovative, intimate experience that they want to talk about and share on social media.
The Bud Light Backyard Tour in 2023 had fans enter to win tickets to an intimate outdoor show by OneRepublic, Midland, Dashboard Confessional, and Bush. The brand has a long-running history of these kinds of events with previous iterations including the Bud Light Mystery Tour and the Bud Light Sessions.
Promotional marketing
Promotional marketing is another brand activation service that can help move consumers from awareness to engagement. While engagement marketing centers on creating memorable brand experiences via interactive events and hands-on experiences, promotional marketing focuses on driving immediate sales or engagement by offering incentives like discounts, coupons, or limited-time deals.
This type of activation includes in-store sampling events. A Little Bird has done this with many types of consumer packaged goods to allow consumers to try products before purchasing. By doing this onsite, where people can buy the product, the individual can immediately act on their interest, which can result in higher sales on the spot.
Product sampling can also convert interest into sales, although not in real-time. Offering free samples, often in high-traffic areas, allows consumers to try before buying.
A Little Bird has designed product sampling tours across the nation to build brand awareness within a target market. Take our partnership with Franciscan Wines. We designed and implemented a brand activation that brought the premium wine to people who cared about food at stops on the national Heritage Fire Food Festival. With free samples on offer in two different locations at the events, the sampling rate was above 90 percent.
Going to trade shows and conferences is another approach. For example, you might encourage brand engagement by inviting people to actively participate in an interactive element at an industry event like LG or Sony due at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Or, for a consumer-focused approach, you might host a celebrity chef giving a live demonstration at a street food festival using your brand’s cookware or tabletop kitchen electronics.
In an example that crosses both promotional and digital activations, Samsung is known for its VR stations at tech conferences, which allow participants to directly engage with Samsung Gear in real-time.
Digital activations
You might offer virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) experiences to give someone a hands-on familiarity with your product or service.
Tesla set itself apart as a company on the cutting-edge of technology with virtual reality test drives allowing consumers to "drive" their vehicles in different cities worldwide. The wanna-be driver didn’t have to leave the event space but they got a real sense of what it was like to be in a Tesla driver’s seat.
Digital doesn’t have to be high-tech, though. You can also execute digital brand activations via social media campaigns. Starbucks #RedCupContest asked people to share photos with the coffee conglomerate’s holiday cups on Instagram. They offered prizes and in return generated a massive volume of user-generated content, or UGC.
Online contests and giveaways also drive consumer engagement. A social media contest often has a ripple effect, which can extend a brand’s reach beyond direct followers. Plus, it’s a cost-effective marketing approach that can have higher returns than traditional advertising.
Influencer partnerships also enhance brand visibility. They are so common that you can likely look at your own social media feed right now and find an example of an online giveaway that involves influencers.
Perhaps you follow someone who shares content related to great getaways in your region. They might host a tag-a-friend contest showing the great time they had at So and So’s Glamping site. These promotions often go as follows: the influencer posts images and text, which makes the place look amazing, and then they say one lucky follower will get a free stay. To enter, the person needs to tag a friend and follow So and So’s Glamping. It provides an incentive that helps the glamping company grow organically. Plus, it identifies people to target for future interactions.
Retail activations
Retail activations are most often executed in a brick and mortar store. Offering experiences that enhance the in-store shopping experience can drive purchase intent.
In-store activations include:
- Point-of-sale displays — Attractive, branded displays positioned to draw attention to featured products, often near checkout points. You’ve probably seen these from Pepsi during the Super Bowl when it puts vibrant displays of its sodas and related snack products in high traffic areas of the grocery store.
- In-store demonstrations — Observing how consumers interact with products and services during these activations can help you gather valuable insights into consumer behaviors, likes, and dislikes. Back in the grocery store again, you may have been offered a cold brew coffee sample or a free taste of a vegan snack.
- Interactive kiosks — A tech-enabled kiosk in-store can be designed to offer product information, answer consumer questions, ask people to fill on a quick survey, or support virtual fitting or innovative customizations. Adidas, for example, installed interactive kiosks in select stores where customers could design their custom sneakers on the spot.
Guerrilla marketing
Unconventional brand activations designed to surprise and delight people where they live, work and play are known as guerrilla marketing. These are typically quirkier activations, but the fact that they are unexpected generates buzz and makes a lasting impression.
Ikea once furnished an entire subway station in Paris, surprising commuters with stylish, functional spaces, promoting the brand's accessibility and design appeal.
Other examples include:
- Street teams distribute free samples at a festival or sporting event build brand awareness in high-energy environments
- A flash mob performs a choreographed dance routine that aligns with your brand’s latest campaign or features performers dressed in your latest product line
- Interactive kiosks in unexpected places garner publicity and UGC (e.g., Coke’s Happiness Machine)
Key elements of activation success
No matter which activation approach you select, the best practices remain the same. Consider the following questions before embarking on your campaign.
What’s my brand activation objective?
Objectives can range from increasing brand awareness, driving sales, generating leads, or boosting customer loyalty. But you need to know what you want to do before launching your campaign.
How will I measure success?
Setting specific and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) like foot traffic, social media engagement, or sales helps track the effectiveness of the campaign.
You could also include mechanisms for tracking and measuring results (e.g., QR codes, lead capture forms, social media metrics, or app downloads) to collect data.
Does this align with my brand identity?
Your memorable experiences should reflect the core values and identity of the brand. Ensure your activation remains consistent with your overall messaging, tone, and visual identity to reinforce the brand image in consumers' minds.
Do I understand my audience?
Achieve understanding through market research, customer segmentation, and analysis of consumer behavior. The better you understand your customer, the more tailored and effective you will be.
This will also help you bring a personal touch to your efforts. Consumers are more likely to engage if they feel the experience speaks to their life directly or addresses their needs and desires.
Does this activation appeal to the senses?
Brand activation engages directly with your consumer. Using a multi-sensory approach (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell) can heighten the consumer’s experience.
Combining sensory experience with storytelling is even better, especially when people can share their own life experience through UGC.
What is my call to action (CTA)?
Every project should drive a specific action (e.g., making a purchase, downloading an app, or sharing their experience on social media). Make sure your CTA is clear and easy to follow. You might offer incentives to encourage participants to act.
Where and when work best?
Your location needs to be appropriate for your brand image and accessible to your target audience. It might be a physical location (like our set up for Bacardi) or on a virtual platform, but be sure to choose the right venue.
The timing is important too. Consider when is best to boost visibility and engagement. For example, we’ve taken brands to the Sundance Film Festival. But we weren’t trying to expose the festival visitors to a bikini brand in snowy Utah in January.
Can I adapt?
Flexibility is important too. It can help to think ahead about how you can adapt to unexpected circumstances. You may need to adjust event logistics due to weather conditions or tweak messaging based on real-time feedback. Being ready and willing to pivot at a moment’s notice can help keep your campaign on track.
That leads us to a brief discussion of potential challenges you might encounter.
Brand activation challenges
Companies can face several challenges in executing their strategies successfully. Potential pitfalls include:
- Budget constraints — There's often pressure to maximize reach and engagement while keeping costs low. This may require trade-offs, like using smaller venues, fewer staff, or less sophisticated technology, which can diminish the overall impact.
- Logistical issues — Event production often involves multiple elements like venues, permits, equipment, and staff. Supply chain disruptions can also disrupt plans.
- Measuring return on investment (ROI) — Brand activations generally have less tangible outcomes which can make them more difficult to measure.
- Ensuring cross-channel alignment — Ensuring a cohesive message and consistent branding across physical events, social media, influencer marketing, and digital platforms can be difficult.
The key to overcoming these challenges is budget prioritization to strategically allocate resources and proper pre-planning and vendor management. Using technology like QR codes, NFC tags, or social media tracking can improve your data collection. Meanwhile, having a centralized brand strategy, along with strong project management tools, helps ensure consistency across channels and smooth collaboration between teams.
Brand activations build awareness, foster engagement, drive consumer action, differentiate from competitors, and gather valuable insights. Offering immersive experiences via activations allows you to connect with your target consumer in a more powerful way than through traditional advertising.
Work with us to find the activation service that genuinely represents your brand and offers real value or meaningful experiences to consumers. Contact us!