The Resurgence And Rejigging Of Experiential Marketing For A Post Covid 19 World - Tribe Agency (1)

The Resurgence And Rejigging Of Experiential
Marketing For A Post Covid 19 World - Tribe
Agency
We cannot, of course, pretend that we will ever be truly
living in a “post-COVID-19” world; nonetheless, we are
living in a world in which there has been a noticeable
sensibility change around the virus. If the coronavirus
pandemic has not exactly “gone”, the picture has
certainly altered considerably amid the lifting of
previous restrictions and rules designed to minimise the
spread of illness.
And it is certainly important to acknowledge that – as
invaluable as digital experiences at the height of the
lockdowns proved to be for helping to preserve crucial
personal and professional connections – it is also only
human for us to yearn to be together. And sometimes,
that happens to entail sharing a brick-and-mortar
space.

The data points to a serious comeback for
experiential marketing…
This weariness that now surrounds the notion of
continuing to treat video conferencing and other digital
means of communication as social ‘go-tos’, is borne out
in the statistics.
Recent research has indicated a degree of “Zoom
fatigue”. It has manifested in about two thirds of
consumers failing to turn up for low-cost or free virtual
events, as well as more than half of event marketers
admitting that they struggled to create memorable and
engaging experiences for virtual attendees, compared
to in-person events.
It is no wonder, then, on the backdrop of the above, that
according to a survey during last year’s period of
recovery from the pandemic, eight in 10 brands signalled
an expectation that their event and experiential budgets
would match or exceed their pre-pandemic budget.
But are brands coming back to the
‘experiential marketing’ they once knew?

Speaking of the backdrop, the “return” of experiential
marketing to many brands’ priority lists is not occurring in
a set of circumstances that greatly resemble those of the
last pre-pandemic year of 2019.
The businesses of today are grappling with challenges to
the implementation of experiential marketing that are
quite unlike those of a few years ago, ranging from
shortages of event staff and upward pressure on wages, to
strained supply chains and elevated costs. Few of these
obstacles look likely to greatly lessen any time soon,
which will doubtless have implications for your own
brand’s interventions in the field.
After all, the fundamentals underpinning the need for
experiential marketing have not shifted appreciably from
the situation in 2019. Target consumers across the
generations – from Baby Boomers to Generation Alpha –
continue to hanker for engaging brand experiences.
Furthermore, those experiences taking place ‘in-person’
can help transcend the temptation for a brand to centre
its marketing in more passive ‘billboard’ forms, or to deter
the customer with the ‘hard sell’.
So, while the challenges that accompany your brand’s use
of experiential marketing are different to what they would
have once been – and merit different solutions to suit –
the reasons why your involvement in this field makes so
much sense might not be so different. It is, regardless, all
about tapping into the remarkable scope that this form of
marketing offers for the best possible face-to-face user
experience, in an age in which ‘digital overwhelm’ has
become more acute than ever.

No one ‘does’ experiential marketing quite
like Tribe
Whether the experiential marketing that you would like
your brand to engage with looks likely to take the form of
captivating product launches, trade shows, pop-up
events, or all manner of other happenings that
consumers will remember for all the finest reasons, the
Tribe team stands ready to assist.
Our journey as an experiential agency has been ongoing
since 2001. And whatever stage of its own journey your
brand might have reached in its relationship with
experiential marketing, we can help ensure you engage
with the right people, in the right ways, at the right time.
1.03 The Loom 14 Gower’s Walk
London E1 8PY
info@tribeagency.co.uk
020 7702 3600