Hyundai created a unique experience for visitor's to New York City's Times Square: a racing game played on one of the Square's enormous billboard monitors. Using iPhones for controls, the event created an experience the participants wouldn't forget. The interactive, tactile, exciting nature of such an event is a textbook example of a highly effective marketing approach: Experiential marketing.
In essence, experiential marketing seeks to pull consumers in with an interactive experience which helps integrate emotional and logical thought and leave a firm impression in a short period of time. It's no coincidence that many advanced teaching methods implement physically and mentally engaging activities of the same sort; we remember what we do with our bodies much easier, which in turn helps us remember what we were thinking about at the time. Hyundai's example presents a brilliant use of this; now, those players have an association between Hyundai and actually driving, not as an abstract concept but as a physical memory.
Hyundai's game stands at the far end of experiential marketing possibilities; obviously, not every company possesses the resources to develop a high end game and put it in Times Square, but there are many less excessive ways to implement experiential marketing into a campaign strategy. At the lowest end, print-based ads can seek to pull consumers in with puzzles and vivid imagery. Web ads and websites provide a simple way to create an interactive experience too, in the form of simple games, interactive tours, or even just unique and dynamic interfaces.
Check out the video here - Hyundai Race in Times Square
That said, nothing will stick with a consumer more than a physical event. Event marketing has long been a standby of savvy businesses, but too many plan mundane, passive events instead of interactive experiences to excite and involve visitors on a visceral level. The base for an experiential marketing even can be anything—music events, trade shows, film production, fashion shows—so long as an effort is made to interface with consumers and spark their imaginations.
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