Bringing brands to life

MANILA, Philippines - The business of bringing brands to life through engaging experiences has never been more exciting. Consumers are slowly appreciating the value of real and personal connections with brands, thus, are looking for more meaningful interactions.

The widespread adoption of technology has paved the way for numerous creative and innovative solutions and accelerated ways to crack ideas, monitor and track effectiveness, and analyze results.

These changes present great challenges to activation agencies and professionals. Not only will they determine the quality of ideas and executions but also profoundly impact the role we play in this highly competitive industry.

We pulled together some of the biggest trends and innovations to look out for in 2014:

• All for the good

With great transparency comes greater accountability. Technology has put consumers in a relatively better position to know more about brands. They actively research to understand brand positions on issues relevant to them. They compare quality and prices. They are always on the look out for brands that share their passions and interests.

Presentation of value is vital in addressing this consumer attitude. Every event must communicate the purpose a brand shares with its consumers. Every experience must be built toward encouraging trust. These efforts may not immediately lead to sales but will surely go a very long way.

• Tech-savvy experiences

The use of technology in creating brand experiences will be more pronounced this 2014. Wearable and ultra-portable computing devices will make their way to live events from readable bracelets, augmented reality, to NFC technology and face recognition. All these innovations will result in hyper-targeted invitation lists and registration check-ins, more dynamic ways of mining consumer profiles, feedback and sentiments, increased interactivity, and real-time engagement analytics.

• Collaboration makes you king

Crowd-sourcing, crowd-sharing and user-generated contents remain to be the de rigueur for consumer engagement but this year, collaboration will be taken a notch higher. With immense data, knowledge and stratification of their target audience, buyers and consumers, coupled with an ever-decreasing advertising and activation budget, brands and institutions will find it more acceptable to form alliances and create collaborative or complementary campaigns to target specific market groups.

The success of campaigns like “Wear Happiness” by Coca-Cola and Bench and SMART’s multi-awarded “TXTbook” in partnership with the Department of Education highlights the value of finding like-minded brands and institutions to champion your cause. This year, expect more ideas that celebrate partnership and collaboration.

• Relevant and consistent multi-channel experiences

The explosion of available media has made consumer attention harder than ever to come by. To cut through the clutter, careful selection and integration of relevant channels must be ensured. This requires thorough understanding of the various functions of every channel across all phases of involvement.

For 2014, the use of event-specific websites and apps will increase to target the ever-connected consumers. These platforms will not be limited to promoting the activity or encouraging attendance. They will be transformed into more dynamic and robust ecosystems for sustainable participation.

We also expect to see mobile as a key part in the engagement strategy. The increase in network connection speed and introduction of new gadgets and devices will make the use of mobile an important part of every event marketing mix. A number of mobile-driven activation campaigns have already been introduced, but a much pervasive use, optimization and integration of this channel can be expected.

• Metrics matter

We cannot know what we cannot measure. With the availability of a variety of event planning tools and programs to measure effectiveness and efficiency of every campaign, defining the success of an engagement solely based on sales and attendance will be a thing of the past. Real-time data collection in every event will yield real-time analytics that will help us measure engagement over periods of time. We will be able to identify the spots where merchandising needs deployment, generate leads, drive event traffic, or even move the needle on the quality of interaction and engagement.

Josser Quilendrino is the creative director of Excite Inc. Excite is one of the country’s most trusted names in brand activations.