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The Futures Lab

From URL to IRL: How digitally native brands are harnessing the power of experience

We are living in a “I want it now” reality. Consumers can have what they want when they want it. Instant gratification has become an expectation, rather than an exception.

This habit of impatience is apparent across most industries. People can order groceries to their door within the hour, watch shows on demand without commercials, hop in a cab in minutes and go on a date with a simple swipe. ‘Uberisation’ has disrupted industries globally and has arguably become the most popular business buzzword of our time. The pandemic has given rise to an explosion of direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses and the On-Demand-Economy, which is fulfilling needs by giving instant access, convenience, and personalised experiences to next-gen consumers.

Millennials make up for around half of the On-Demand consumers, which means activity and growth will likely persist. According to PwC research, it is estimated that the On-Demand Economy will soar to reach a whopping $335 billion by 2025. Coupled with this, millennials are the first generation that would rather stay in that go out, which has helped drive this trend.

From URL to IRL – Giving Rise To In-Person Experiences

From Stitchfix, Quip, Away, to Harry’s, what these businesses have in common is that they are digital natives. Born and bred online, these ‘faceless’ challenger brands are growing up and discovering the same truth we all do as we mature: sometimes those who came before us had the right idea.

Initially, these digitally native brands were pumped full of venture capital, aggressively marketing via paid online advertising in order to drown out the competition. This catapulted many to success, aided by the pandemic, which invited some of the highest sales as people were forced to shop online while physical stores shuttered.

However, the cost to acquire customers online has skyrocketed, coupled by the anti-tracking headaches these brands now face. As a result, many are ‘going back to the drawing board, turning to in-person experiences to acquire new consumers and drive brand equity.

Brand experience is what people want

While the pandemic saw a huge boost in DTC sales, these success levels are beginning to plateau as people go on digital detoxes, seeking to get back to a greater level of ‘normal’ in the real world. Browsing for goods in person is part of this, with approximately 82% of millennials believing it’s important for a brand to have a physical store.

With growing consumer concerns over screen addiction and a desire to seek tangible, real-world experiences post pandemic, brands have an opportunity to exploit the multidimensionality and multisensory possibilities of physical spaces in new and imaginative ways – at every step of the consumer journey.

Creating real-world experiences that drive acquisition, equity, and retention 

As digital customer acquisition costs soar, we’re seeing brands attract new consumers IRL through reactive, hyper-local activation teams – particularly with product sampling in the meal and grocery delivery sectors. In a crowded digital sphere, sampling campaigns are an effective way to drive awareness and stand out amongst the fierce competition. It adds a personal touch to the recruitment process, delivering brand experiences that are memorable and drive loyalty.

Gorillas: Always-on acquisition program

Kickstarted by digital darlings Warby Parker, we’re witnessing a click-to-bricks’ expansion trend, with interaction, experimentation, and play helping to foster deeper emotional connections with consumers. Using smart technologies that unify data. Intimates brand Adore Me is another perfect example of a digitally native brand and start-up using data to strategically enter the physical retail market, poaching customers from its rival competitor, Victoria’s Secret, while giving people a new way to immerse themselves in the brand through in-person experiences.

The pop-up shop, although nothing new, has become the go-to test solution – and nowhere is more booming than New York’s SoHo. In 2021, self-storage brand MakeSpace launched an Instagrammable space, offering in-store appointments and meditation space for consumers – a move that made them stand out amid an increasingly crowded digital ad ecosystem. “A lot of people think we’re crazy,” said Miriam Kendall, SVP of marketing, adding that MakeSpace found that customers wanted an in-person experience based on their feedback. “Why would you open a physical store during a pandemic when ‘retail is dead’? But we think differently.” Stores have become their very own ads – immersive billboards that drive awareness and sell.

These digitally native brands are also producing exceptionally creative experiential moments to gain earned media and grow brand love. To position themselves as the experts in sleep, native online mattress brand Caspar hosted a glamping trip during the last total solar eclipse and even set up a $25-a-pop nap hotel called the Dreamery.

Casper: The Dreamery in New York

DTC brand Babe Wine created a socially distanced manicure truck to deliver much needed TLC and real-world experience to New Yorkers during the pandemic. They partnered with Bumble to help fans survive lockdown breakups and released jockstrap-scented candles. It’s these types of curated brand experiences – ones that answer consumer needs and engage on a deeper level – that can help brands build lasting relationships with consumers.

Babe Wine: Manicure experience

As they mature, digitally native brands are realising that the consumer journey is not linear. It’s an ongoing cycle, whereby businesses cannot sustain growth via digital marketing alone. As Diageo’s CEO Ivan Menezes explains, “it’s not about doing ‘digital marketing’; it’s about marketing effectively in a digital world”.

Here are some key principles for brands who are planning to include in-person experiences in their marketing efforts in the year ahead:

  1. Think idea first, media second – having separate budgets for ‘digital’ and ‘non digital’ is outdated. Plan your marketing strategy by ditching the D word
  2. Zig when others zag – in a world that’s rife with ‘blanding’, it pays to think up fresh and innovative ways to connect with audiences beyond the screen
  3. Take a 360 approach – real world experiences can be used strategically to recruit as well as to retain consumers on an ongoing basis
  4. Team up – look for likeminded brands to collaborate with to extend reach and provide credibility to play in new creative arenas
  5. Test and learn – consider testing on a local level before rolling out larger scale plans with confidence, ensuring that cultural nuances are addressed per market to ensure resonance
  6. Combine URL and IRL to maximise success – use technology and the vast level of data available to create a seamless customer experience between online and in-person experiences
  7. Know what success looks like – be clear on your KPIs and ensure you have a comprehensive evaluation plan in place before embarking on the work

Hayley James is vice president at brand experience agency Sense New York.

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Articles Insights

How Challenger Brands Drive Acquisition With Brand Experiences

Challenger brands have a bold vision to transform the market they exist in, to disregard the odds, and in doing so accelerate business growth and bring change to the industry. They have clarity around their purpose, which leads to a drive and identity that even market leaders struggle to match. Many of these challenger brands have been able to drive acquisition with brand experiences. This is how they did it.

The Thinking That Separates Challenger Brands From Everyone Else

Challenger brands know that it’s not the size of your media budget that defines you, it’s how you tell your story, how you choose to innovate and the way you push the category forwards in a consumer-centric way.

More and more of these companies are turning to brand experience to gain attention, drive acquisition, and sustain loyalty. It’s in their DNA to defy the rulebook, often looking beyond traditional marketing channels to deliver memorable, meaningful, and useful brand experiences that surpass all expectations. The result is challenger brands rising to the top, creating unforgettable brand engagement experiences at every touchpoint of the consumer journey.

Communicating Brand Values To Drive Acquisition

Challenger brands are defined by their state of mind. They have an idea of what the world should be like, and they work tirelessly to achieve that change.

A great example of this is Tony’s Chocolonely, a brand that challenges the ethics of the chocolate industry and commits to “100% slave free” chocolate production. The Netherlands-based business became the leading chocolate brand in its home country without the use of paid ads. Consumers are more willing to recommend a brand that supports a good cause over one that doesn’t, proving that it’s likely this ethical stance is driving word of mouth and rapid growth.

From the unequal and uneven pieces of chocolate itself (cleverly representing the cocoa industry) through to the convention busting aesthetic, Tony’s Chocolonely tells its story at every available opportunity. There is no better way of doing this than showing up in the real world, with a meaningful brand experience tour.

A Brand Experience Can Humanise Your Brand

The most successful companies humanise their brands in ways that make their marketing more relatable and magnetic. A recent study reveals that brands who deliver humanised experiences were twice as likely to outperform the revenue growth of their competitors.

Swedish oat milk brand, Oatly are the masters of this. Famous for their simple, humble, and irreverent tone of voice, they have historically avoided traditional marketing channels and instead opted for grassroots guerrilla tactics, such as murals, fly posting, and product sampling. This grassroots approach even goes so far as to make fun of marketing, which is refreshing for consumers, positioning Oatly as the favoured underdog.

When launching in the US, rather than investing in droves of Google ads, Oatly decided to expand its commercial reach and raise vital product awareness by going straight to the front line – the coffee shops. This approach saw Oatly team up with a selection of artisanal coffee shops, positioning itself as the greatest alternative to dairy, searing its name (and taste) into the minds of satisfied coffee drinkers across the nation.

See Everything As A Medium – With A Generous Dose Of Creative Courage

The most successful challenger brands take a format-free approach to marketing, which results in original experiences that cut through and don’t cost the earth.

Babe Wine, fronted by The Fat Jewish, embodies this way of thinking with its unconventional marketing campaigns. After giving away millions of dollars’ worth of wine on social media at the beginning of quarantine, the brand created a socially distanced manicure truck to deliver much needed TLC to New Yorkers, partnered with Bumble to help fans survive lockdown breakups, built its own Monster Truck, and released jockstrap-scented candles.

These newsworthy experiences, combined with its consumer-savvy, social-first strategy, have kept the sales fizzing, building on its DTC efforts.

Stay Tuned In To Opportunities That Drive Acquisition

Challenger brands are typically fast to react to their environment, using all viable opportunities to drive brand engagement and customer acquisition. Unlike above-the-line channels, brand experience can often be deployed quickly and at little relative expense, meaning it’s a helpful tool to have in the armoury.

Miami-based debt relief app Relief recently disbursed 10,000 lookalike business cards, inviting recipients to take practical steps to get their finances in shape, playing on the theme of the Netflix hit show, Squid Game. This is not only a highly PR-able stunt but also a hardworking and cost-effective acquisition driver.

Reactive marketing can be increasingly difficult to pull off. The fallout from badly received content can cause immense damage to a brand’s reputation, sometimes so that it would have been better to remain silent. It’s important for marketers to time campaigns wisely and treat reactive marketing as more of an occasional opportunity within a wider marketing strategy.

Spark Joy And Reap The Rewards

For those challenger brands who may be looking to go public, it’s worth knowing that guerrilla marketing campaigns that draw on emotions like joy are associated with positive activity on the stock market, according to a study published by the Journal of Advertising Research.

Dating app Bumble, who went public earlier this year, has caught consumer attention through high-impact stunts, gimmicks, and events since their conception in 2014. These experiences have ranged from handing out yellow roses on Valentine’s Day, raising awareness of catfishing through The Great Catch food truck, and taking over coffee shops for the Bumble Hive experience. Understanding how investors respond to these initiatives can guide marketers as they map out their brand plans.

In today’s fast-moving and volatile market, it pays to have a challenger mindset. Covid-19 has shaken up industries across the board and no matter your company’s size, your survival is at risk if you fail to disrupt, excite, and prove your innovative edge. These successful challenger brands maintain a fresh outlook on experiential marketing and focus on delivering incredible, format-free brand experiences with a nimble, bold, and creative approach to everything they do.

Driving acquisition through brand experience is not limited to challenger brands. By the same token, operating with the mindset of a challenger brand is not something out of reach.

Sense invites you to explore the opportunity that exists in brand experience and engagement. Take a stroll through our brand experience portfolio to see how we’ve pulled it off for many brands – both challenger and non-alike.

Hayley James is Vice President at Sense New York.

Experiential

Whether it be Festivals, Trade Shows, PR Stunts, Installations or Pop Ups to name a few, we believe brand experiences are one of the most powerful forms of marketing to impact consumer perception and attitude towards a brand. They can create real behaviour change when born out of a deep consumer insight allied to a compelling idea. And it’s these fundamentals we look to get right whatever the live, virtual or hybrid task in hand.

Sampling.

Sampling is all too often perceived as an unsophisticated, somewhat ‘blunt’ marketing tool. Over the last 16 years Sense has pioneered a set of strategic principles which underpin our unique approach to sampling and which are highly measurable from both an ROI and consumer behaviour change perspective. We will happily guide brands through the myriad of sampling channels and products available so whether it’s mass face to face sampling, in offices, digitally, at home or just a strategic framework that you are after, we can provide a blend of tactics to fulfil both brand and sales objectives.

Retail.

With many clients now focused on activating in channels more closely associated with a sale, our heavyweight retail experience closes the loop on a typical shopper journey by encompassing the moment of truth in store. Be it prize promotions, shopper toolkits, key visual creation, path-to-purchase communications, category strategy, B2B campaigns or Amazon optimisation, our goal is to create forward-thinking retail experiences that deliver demonstrable brand value. We aim to make ‘retail fail’ a thing of the past for ambitious brands looking to thrive is an ever-competitive landscape and believe our streamlined team is perfectly placed to do this.

Foresight.

Knowing what will keep a brand bright, exciting, and vital means we need to keep one step ahead of the curve. Our thought leadership hub, The Futures Lab, helps us to understand the marketing trends of tomorrow. It’s also the origin of strategies and methodologies which have created over 65 award-winning campaigns. 

Rigour.

Creativity is nothing without results. And we know that commissioning bold concepts, capable of changing minds, requires reassurance that it’s the right thing to do. 

Data, insights, and research precedes every campaign we do, and our proprietary measurement tool, EMR, gives us a decade of campaign performance metrics. Which is why we’re proud to have been recognised as industry-leading by brands like The Economist, Coca-Cola, and Molson Coors. 

Trust.

We believe brand experience is inherently more varied than other forms of marketing. No formula, no template, no cookie-cutter approach – and often no precedent. 

That’s why, Sense places trust at the heart of its business – grounded in teamwork between our people and yours. Our processes are efficient, our senior team stay involved and our partnership mentality had helped us sustain powerful client relationships, some lasting over 10 years.