2009: The Year in Review

Event Marketer's Year in Review provides a chronological look at more than 67 ways the industry turned a down economy into an opportunity to prove that live marketing is still alive and kicking.

Mass Freezes and flash mobs pause and cause a commotion in train stations and other busy commuter hubs, and YouTube takes it worldwide. T-Mobile’s flash mob of 350 dancers stops commuters in their tracks at London’s Liverpool Street station. Sony puts nine brand ambassadors dressed as mannequins in Grand Central Terminal and other New York hot spots.

Leading brands learn that bringing everything and the kitchen sink to trade shows muddies the strategy and overwhelms attendees. Marketers begin seeing tangible ROI increases by leaving the full product inventory back at the office. At the 2009 CES show, Microsoft goes from 140 to 32 demo stations and Intel scales back its demos from 42 to 24.

Rock and roll video games are the number one interactive across events and trade shows with marketers tying into the red-hot Rock Band and Guitar Hero to draw crowds. Event attendees may look like complete imbeciles, but they’re havin’ a good time.

Events add aroma, texture and warmth to engage consumers. Stove Top and Tylenol heat up bus shelters in the dead of winter. Mini Cooper pumps the scent of fresh cut grass into its experiences. Kleenex Lotion Feelspace incorporates the smooth touch of running water, hand massages and other textural experiences into a tour traveling to 10 cities hyping a new facial tissue with lotion (it feels so creamy).

Spirit brands including Hornitos and its Garden of Agave tour transform on-premise activations into theatrical experiences complete with snake charmers, fire dancers, contortionists and other provocative elements as exotic as the drinks themselves. This ain’t your dad’s buy-back program.

Temporary retail environments see a huge boom during a down economy (small budgets and an endless inventory of empty storefronts provide the fuel to the fire). Gap partners with Pantone to launch a color-inspired t-shirt line in its temporary retail space. Past partners include the African AIDS relief foundation (RED), and the French boutique, Colette.

"Burn Notice" hits bars in 10 markets and "Big Love" brand ambassadors walk the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia with "secret" thought bubbles suspended over their heads. The same people who say advertising works use live events to help push viewership? HAHAHAHA! Oh you’re killin' us, people.

Emerging artists prove to be a direct line of influence to trendsetting consumers and brands take notice. Taco Bell buys late-night meals for indie bands and then showcases them at its activations including the Winter X Games. Dickies in March follows suit, outfitting up-and-coming bands in their gear at the South by Southwest Music Festival.

The connection to social media kicks into high gear. Brands start linking live events to branded Facebook fan pages. Frito-Lay’s Race to the Fiesta Bowl cross-country challenge reaches fans via Facebook, generating more than 17,000 fans and thousands of page views, visitors, wall posts, user-generated essays, pictures and videos.

Ray-Ban steps up its street activations at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, with Truth or Dare confession booths.

Barack Obama becomes the first African-American president. Tina Fey retires her Sarah Palin impersonation (for now). Pepsi kicks off its Refresh Everything campaign with New Year’s revelers in New York, handing out buttons and noisemakers and, at four minutes to midnight, to the tune of John Lennon’s "Imagine," releasing 1,000 balloons printed with its new logo and messages of hope and joy. IKEA launches an Embrace Change '09 promotion in Washington, D.C. with a full-sized replica of the Oval Office furnished with IKEA products.

Microsoft’s sleek and spacious meeting and press space at CES is a serious upgrade from the press tent in the parking lot (Hey, Jen Mojo and Kati Quigley, keep it up). With wood-floored hallways, modern furnishings, plasmas, gaming systems and sliding glass doors the space feels more like a high-end hotel than a high-tech demo space.

Emergen-C samples its effervescent elixir on the ski slopes proving that there is nowhere sampling teams won’t go.

It ain’t just a fad, folks. Microsoft achieves the first U.S. Phase 1 certification to the BS 8901:2007 standard for sustainability for its Convergence 2009 event, which takes place in March.

A little online site called Twitter starts making a name for itself. Some marketers say it’ll never take off. Others laugh at the marketers who say it’ll never take off. Brands including Oracle, Nike and IBM use it at live events to send attendees updates and track conversations in real time.

The technology boom is just getting started as virtual and reality become one. Telepresence technology lets attendees beam into events via videoconference and becomes a viable option for small meetings and large events at Cisco.

Bam! Brands including Meow Mix, Robert Mondavi wines and Belk department stores spice up events with celebrity chef appearances.

Retailers do the same thing with hot designers. Example: Jonathan Adler creates spaces for Amex at Fashion Week and a chocolate suite for Godiva.

Remember, exclusive access doesn’t really need to be exclusive. It just needs to seem exclusive. Got that? You sure? Ok here’s an example: Thai liquor brand Mekhong leverages the air of mystery to connect with hard-to-please hipsters and influencers. On-premise events are held in speakeasy-style bars complete with unmarked doors and back alley locations.

Sharp’s associate vp-retail and consumer marketing, Judah Zeigler, plays hardball with his activation-to-retail strategy, skipping retail locations where the sales staff isn’t up to snuff, requiring upfront inventory purchases by retailers, activating a dedicated subject matter expert team for key accounts and setting clear expectations with retailers about short- and long-term sales lift after the event. You may drive a hard bargain, Judah, but you’ve got one of the strongest event-driven retail sales machines in the industry. Retailers, we dare you to complain. We friggin’ dare you!

Inventive planners try and turn the most boring friggin’ corporate meetings into something attendees can stand to attend. Take Pecha Kucha: The 20-slides-in-under-seven-minutes format catches fire and becomes a quick-fix for stale PowerPoint presentations.

Just like when you were a little kid: Your mom still has all the power. To build credibility with household decision-makers, brands such as Huggies and McDonald’s create unique live experiences and then invite socially active mommy bloggers to spread the good word online.

Turnkey event registration services such as Event Innovation, Eventbrite and Eventbee leverage social networks to boost ROI.

It was the year that the phone and PDA companies literally bought themselves the music industry. The Grammy Celebration Concert Tour presented by T-Mobile Sidekick is one of several mobile companies that use music to connect with customers. Virgin Mobile launches a 32-date Britney Spears The Circus Tour in April. Blackberry sponsors U2 over the summer.

Nothing is safe in the world of street marketing. The side of a building becomes the new billboard. For five nights projectionists visit high traffic locations in New York City to project a looping video of Red Bull’s soccer team, the New York Red Bulls.

HP’s virtual platform, Virtual Events Central, gains momentum, replacing some live events and cutting costs for qualified leads by as much as 95 percent—and serving as a global wakeup call to the event community that virtual is for real. Financial management firm Ariba trades in its annual live event for its first-ever virtual event, Ariba LIVE.

Random is fabulous, kids. Free cab rides from HSBC, free resumes from FedEx, free PC tune-ups from Staples and free coffee from State Farm. Just a few of the random goodwill marketing tactics used to engage consumers and build loyalty.

One of the biggest trends of the year starts spreading like wild fire, as brands turn to intimate in-home events to build word of mouth. Socially active consumers throw the parties and then post photos and thoughts about the products on personal and brand-hosted blogs. Genius. Just genius.

BRANDED HOUSES Marketers at Vitaminwater, LG, Heineken and Fuze, to name a few, tweak the pop-up format to create their own super-cool “homes” for consumers and clients to hang in. Yo, where’s our invite, homies?

Branded buzz cuts and tattoos transform consumers into walking billboards for brands like Air New Zealand, proving that people will do anything for a free plane ticket.

Carnival turns vacant storefronts into cell phone-driven motion-activated virtual fish tanks. Passersby dial an 888-number to create their own personalized fish and then use their phone’s keypad to feed it and play with its appearance. Fun to watch. More fun to play with.

Lysol discovers that 40 percent of NASCAR fans are women so it surprises visitors to the ladies room at major race events with a squeaky clean experience. Somewhere out there, a Purell marketing team cries that they didn’t think of it first (had they known Swine Flu was going to explode six months later, they wouldn’t have cried so much).

New Balance gives its brand a more youthful makeover with a 33-college, 11-market guerrilla campaign that mixes provocative postings in the college newspaper, overnight dorm sweeps, surprise product drops, wild postings, sidewalk stencils and bar promotions. The “LOVE/hate” program helps win favor with the brand’s 18- to 29-year-old-demo and scores the brand a Grand Ex Award. Foot Locker loves the 31 percent sales lift. We love the suggestive personal ads, you dirty birdies.

The TSA may be able to prevent your shampoo from clearing security, but they can’t touch event marketing. Boingo Wireless and Samsung’s IT division brave the red tape and activate inside airport terminals. Can you say, captive audience?

The strategy coined by trendspotting.com suggests marketers skip the street sampling and instead get samples in the hands of targeted customers and then elicit feedback from them through social media platforms.

Traveling experiences turn into mini museums on the go. Disney kicks off its “A Christmas Carol” train tour to promote the 3D movie launch on Nov. 6. The tour features rare artifacts like Charles Dickens’ fountain pen. Country Financial spends 2009 on tour with relics from the Titanic.

Social media starts to move from cyberspace to ground-level. DiGiorno launches a flatbread pizza by offering to provide free pies to Twitter users at their tweetup events.

Mobile brands like T-Mobile, AT&T and U.S. Cellular drive data collection at events through cell phone-based games, scavenger hunts, texting contests and photo retrieval.

While other auto brands sputter along in the slow lane and contemplate bankruptcy, Hyundai is on the move thanks to a mix of guerrilla car enthusiast events and targeted VIP and influencer programs. In a year that auto brands sink deeper into the quicksand, Hyundai is crushing it.

The sum is indeed greater than its parts. Brands pair up to get more bang for their marketing bucks. Example: Burger King and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese partner in a Play With Your Food tour.

Freebies reach the living room as Domino’s supplies free pizzas to 2,000 in-home events, reaching 30,000 consumers on one day.

Auto marketers recognize that five minutes behind the wheel ain’t enough. Ford launches Fiesta Movement, giving new Fiestas to 100 bloggers, Twitterati, Facebookers and YouTube video stars for six months. Each driver’s thoughts, exploits, photos and videos are posted at fiestamovement.com. The campaign will be remembered as one of the most innovative of the year.

MILFS, cougars, Stifler's mom. Whatever you call women of a certain age who are working their mommy mojo, they’re making a statement at events. On June 3, IFC looks for the Hottest Rocker Mom to drive viewership of its "Z-Rock" series. No, we can’t make this stuff up. Yes, we giggled when we typed "MILFS."

The Area 21 program for Smirnoff Vodka was just sick. The brand stages a mini festival within larger music festivals featuring surprise performances from bands that had been on the main stage earlier in the day. Other clever moves: a dj was perched above the bar so the closer you got to the bar, the closer you got to the music. Also, folks could roam the experience by connecting their Bluetooth devices to the Area 21 "hub."

As many Americans plan “staycations” instead of vacations, home goods brands take their show on the road. The Haier Home Tour and Be HomeGoods Happy tour both launch in July. The DOE and its energy efficient appliance partners take a full-sized energy efficient home on a 17-date tour.

They’re more than a pretty face. The people compiling the information at the show need to be smarter and more tech-savvy than ever before. Brands such as Borghese and Hyundai require event staffers to gather, measure and translate consumer data.

Adobe and Intel scale down their events in the recession-sensitive market. Their top tips: be transparent with attendees, skip celebrity speakers, grant more access to in-house execs, combine events with another region or country and hire local musical talent.

Think of it as mission control for your laptop. Dashboards are high-tech interfaces that let you track your event programs and data in real time. They gain momentum as marketers are being asked to prove ROI for every expenditure.

Can't find a sport that matches your corporate image? Hasbro’s Nerf unit solved the dilemma by creating one of its own: Nerf Dart Tag. To give it an extra dose of legitimacy (think Frisbee Golf), it also creates an official governing body, the Nerf Dart Tag League (NDTL). The new sport sets off on tour this summer holding competitions in 15 markets, including five in conjunction with the AST Dew tour. Hasbro created the proprietary tour to drive sales but as the program evolves, it may also enjoy the perks of self-sufficiency, potentially using tournament entry fees to offset program hard costs, and opening events to additional sponsorship revenue and partners. What brand wouldn't love a program that pays for itself?

Unsold homes, empty condos and neighborhood cafes become cool, off-the-beaten-path event spaces.

Teambuilding programs that benefit others turn internal events into feel-good experiences. With all eyes on corporate spending, the boost in public perception doesn’t hurt either.

Samsung and the U.S. Army stake their claim in shopping centers to build long-term relationships with target consumers. Army recruitment rates explode.

Cool high-tech tools like Chirpe, Minglesticks and Jagtag make events more fun for attendees and give event marketers everywhere gadget envy.

Finding the cool kids who will talk up your brand becomes the go-to strategy for building authentic word-of-mouth among younger, tougher-to-please consumer categories. Pepsi’s AMP Energy drink gains momentum with its biggest influencer sampling program ever by tapping into local populations of djs, artists, emerging sports stars and fashion trendsetters in 25 markets.

We love this program. AMP Energy’s influencer campaign includes a killer component that helps the brand win favor with customers in 25 markets—the mini fridge. Trendsetting streetwear shops, sneaker boutiques and action sportswear retailers submit their own custom design and AMP sends them a free mini-fridge featuring the shop’s artwork on the exterior. The AMP team keeps the fridge fully stocked, retailers showcase their handiwork and the brand gets access to high-traffic locations and highly-targeted consumers. Good stuff.

With America’s collective spirits in the dump, the pop psychology trend that suggests we look on the bright side of life becomes a marketing concept. So does the trend of turning ordinary consumers into living marketing campaigns. Example: Kodak’s BrightSide tour features the Compliment Guys, two kids from Purdue who dish out compliments for fun.

Brands more and more turn to events to shake off old perceptions about their products. Cintas, the uniform company best known for its blue scrubs, shakes up its reputation with an upscale fashion show in Las Vegas. It is, dare we day, sexy.

To help ease the transition for first-time virtual event attendees, brands such as Ariba, ASI and Navistar turn to live event tactics. Top tips include: giveaway offers that encourage exploration of the environment, a 24-hour help desk, a guided tour, pre-show training via webinars and hybrid programs that mix live and virtual events.

File this under the “Trends that need to die” file. Eco friendly tours may not be so eco-friendly after all. Many use gas-guzzling flatbed trucks to haul biodiesel, electric and solar-powered vehicles from city to city, defeating the purpose entirely. What’s worse, some have yet another vehicle that follows filled with alternative fuels. WTF?

No longer do your photo activation programs require the big stationary neon green curtain. Thanks to a ton of new technology, consumer photos can be taken anywhere and electronically manipulated on the spot to appear in front of any variety of backdrops. As an added bonus, attendees can customize the photos themselves, which means more time spent on the data collection website. Aw, snap!

No longer do your photo activation programs require the big stationary neon green curtain. Thanks to a ton of new technology, consumer photos can be taken anywhere and electronically manipulated on the spot to appear in front of any variety of backdrops. As an added bonus, attendees can customize the photos themselves, which means more time spent on the data collection website. Aw, snap!

It ain’t easy telling 200,000 of your top sales people that there would be no recognition event this year. So Cisco created “The Threshold,” an online scavenger hunt and puzzle-solving game that was designed to get the entire sales force excited about the event and tapped into their inherent competitiveness to pull them into the virtual environment. It began three weeks before the sales meeting and ended on the last day of the event. The storyline: Someone stole a bit of Cisco technology and the company needs you to find the culprit. Clues to each step arrived via voicemails and emails, driving players into the virtual world. Some attendees may have been bummed about missing the chance to shake ceo John Chambers’ hand, but when faced with the economic realities of cutting back on its live shows, Cisco found a way to talk to its audience in a relevant way.

Hispanics are America’s largest and fastest-growing minority demographic. More importantly, they spend more than other demos and feel good about it. Hispanic households spend from seven to 30 percent more at grocery stores than other segments and their consumer confidence ratings are higher than any other demographic.

Also known as food or ice cream trucks, these mini restaurants on wheels are the hottest thing going in New York and L.A., offering everything from schnitzels and dumplings to ice cream and Asian-fusion tacos. In the marketing world, the Olsen Twins’ Treat Truck hits the Big Apple to promote their apparel at JC Penney. The LA Kings Hockey Team follows suit in November with a branded ice cream truck.

Marketers discover there are right and wrong ways to engage with Twitter users, or, “tweeps.” Professional grammar and spelling—good; snarky comments and attempted humor—bad. Offering coupons, gift cards or other rewards—good; forgetting to have a hashtag (#) for your events—bad. Info that amuses, entertains or enriches your followers—good; shameless self-promotion—very, very bad. Keep it cool, my babies.

As recession forces businesses to cut back on travel, companies like ABB are bringing the trade show to the people. The strategy is so effective ABB boosts investment in the program five-fold from 2008. Yo ABB, we like the way you roll—literally.

Consumers today don’t want you to tell them how to think about your brand. They want to interpret it for themselves. Example: On Oct. 13, Yahoo! gives its iconic yodel back to the people and invites consumers to submit their yodel online or at live events in three countries.

With the summer music festival circuit officially at an end, Toyota rises to the top to get our vote for best festival activation. The brand made connections with young, music-loving audiences by tapping into their passion for self-expression and offering handmade Shrinky Dinks, temporary tattoos and custom silk-screened bandanas as creative take-home items. Tie-ins with local indie rock stations and live stage performances gave the brand a shot of extra credibility among attendees with fickle tastes (and they all have fickle tastes). As marketers learn to let consumers interpret their brands in their own way, Toyota does a great job setting the pace.

Nothing reels in a wide variety of publications like a world record attempt. Earlier in the year, EA breaks the record for most air guitarists rocking out at the same time. Wise Potato Chips went for the most crunchers at once at a Mets Game this summer. And on Nov. 11 Cosmopolitan magazine and Maybelline celebrate Veterans’ Day with a Kisses for the Troops stunt in NYC. The world record attempt garnered over 1,800 lipstick prints. In a related matter, EM’s Chip Berry tries to break his own record of eating 68 buffalo wings within 30 minutes.

Brands and agencies alike get serious about their eco-efforts and bring on full-time sustainability officers.

With the help of designers and street-style artists, marketers transform the old branded t-shirt into a vehicle for consumer engagement and self-expression. Pepsi’s AMP Energy rolls out custom silk-screening teams at its events and lets attendees pick the designs for their shirts. (Many wear them the same night. When’s the last time you saw that?) Toyota keeps lines long all day at its festival activations with custom-made silk-screened bandanas.

The smarty-pants’ over at Bud Camp may have perfected the immersive, all-inclusive consumer experience, but they’re not the only ones whisking people away on exotic branded weekends. Air New Zealand matches singles up online and flies them to New Zealand on a Matchmaking Flight. Drambuie’s Pursuit promotion flies a select group to Scotland to navigate a challenging 100-mile course that traces the spirit brand’s history.

Think of them as pre-promotions with a lot more sizzle. Stolichnaya’s 10-week, multi-city Moskova Affair tour gives target audiences a sneak preview of upcoming performances in the days before the main event.

Red Bull sends its Facebook fans out into the real world to solve clues that lead to Red Bull Energy Shots in its social media-driven grassroots program, Red Bull Stash, which kicked off Oct. 13 and wrapped Nov. 5. Fans started on Facebook, plugged in a zip code and then searched for stashes in their area. Once a fan found a stash on the map, all that was left was to solve the clue and get there first. Whoever reached the stash first snagged the drinks and headed online to put in a code and make the claim. There hasn’t been a more innovative use of Facebook and real-world brand experiences yet. Red Bull, you gotta be drinking your own product. Game on.

Thanks to new rules by the FTC, brands and bloggers will need to be a whole lot more transparent about their relationships online. Break the rules and the feds could lay a $16,000 fine on you. Bloggers everywhere prepare to go back to being the unpaid nerds living in their parents’ garage that they were before.

Old school collection techniques like post-show surveys, along with new high-tech qualitative tools like face recognition software will give marketers more options than ever for tracking attendee behavior and data.

Now that the newness has worn off, marketers are recognizing that some social media platforms are better suited to certain objectives and demographics than others. Example: Starbucks’ VIA mobile tour leveraged the talents of the brand’s on-board staff—a full-time comedian and a social media expert—via webisodes on YouTube and frequent Twitter updates. ESPN.com focused only on Facebook and Twitter to sustain long-term communication and interest among fans during the NBA’s off-season. The tighter the social media strategy, the better the results, folks.