Although marketers are increasingly equipped with more technical tools, it seems that they still reserve a certain place for traditional event marketing.
More than half (53%) of the 300 top marketing professionals interviewed said that event marketing is the fastest and deepest way to build relationships with audiences in the target customer group.
The “2009 Event Insights” survey was completed in early February by George P. Johnson, the MPI Foundation, the Event Marketing Institute and a group of successful marketers (41%), whose companies have revenues of up to $1 billion.
More than a quarter (26%) of those interviewed said that event marketing is a discipline that can increase the return on investment in the fastest way. “The current difficult economic situation requires marketers to raise their ambitions to overcome, especially those responsible for implementing direct retaliatory marketing plans, such as organizing events to promote the process of rising to the top position,” said Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of IPM.
29% marketers will shift from event marketing to experiential marketing in the next 12 months. The difference is that experiential marketing “requires real immersion and experiences using social media to create powerful brand impact through relevant, branded word-of-mouth storytelling.” One-third of them agree that they are ready to make the change.
The findings from these two trends have converged, says David Rich, director of global marketing strategy at the experiential marketing firm George P. Johnson.
“First the economic downturn drove brands to invest in channels like events, which can deliver ROI; then the maturation of event marketing and experiential marketing strategies – the strategic, creative, communicative and digital application of ABL formats, and the activation of them through the actual execution of an event portfolio made up of a variety of internal and external event types.”
While spending controls are necessary, marketers are still increasing their creativity to freshen up events. Of these, 66% unanimously said their plans are adding or have added creative elements since 32% in 2007.
In this same group, 44% marketers did so on a collective mandate. Creative spend accounted for 13% of the event budget.
Above all, “the real challenge for brands in 2009 is how to balance fixed budgets with this trend, to create a quantifiable result”
Brandweek
