Four Tips for Making the Most of Your Proprietary Event

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Kait Shea

Tips from Corona’s Electric Beach Platform to HP’s Omen Challenge to help you create your best proprietary event yet

It’s no secret that producing proprietary events and platforms takes a lot of time, energy and resources. You can’t farm out the work when your brand is running the show. But as many companies can attest to, the investment almost always pays dividends. With no competition for share of mind and greater opportunities to make personal connections with consumers, the engagements are deeper and more impactful. Following are four tips for owning your next event.

1. Push Boundaries

The brand makes the rules when it comes to proprietary events, so why not think outside the box and push the boundaries of creativity? That was Dos Equis’ tactic at its Halloween event in New Orleans. Attendees could draw a rose from the Goddess of Life’s bouquet, risk receiving a cricket-filled sandwich at the on-site bakery and choose which side of the event to enter—either the lush world of the living, where the senses were overwhelmed, or the shadows of the world beyond, where nothing was as it seemed. In other words: go for it.

2. Give it a Digital Life

Promoting events on social media is a vital part of any experiential campaign. Consider taking it a step further by giving your event a separate social identity. Corona gave its proprietary Electric Beach platform a boost by creating its own Instagram account where the brand sends updates on event dates and posters with information on how to RSVP.

3. Take Attendees out of Their Comfort Zone

Sometimes the best way to create memorable moments is to offer experiences attendees wouldn’t seek out on their own. A little adrenaline can go a long way, especially when it comes to CLIF Bar’s proprietary CykelScramble bicycle relay race. Described as “four people, one bike, a half-mile crazy obstacle course and a festival,” the event took participants on a wild ride around California’s Marin County Fairgrounds. Many attendees had never ridden a professional obstacle course for bikes, making CyckelScramble an unforgettable experience.

4. Involve the Virtual Audience

Getting consumers to attend your proprietary event in person is paramount, but if you’re also incorporating a virtual audience, it’s important to make them feel involved in order to maximize engagement. Take a cue from HP’s multisensory gaming tournament, Omen Challenge, which allowed millions of online viewers to make an impact on the event. Every 15 minutes, viewers could go to the Omen Challenge page online to vote on what “torture” element to inflict on the gamers, and the element with the most votes was applied.