B-to-C Events

Many mobile tours are kind of like speed daters. They try to make the most impressions on the most people in the quickest amount of time, then move on. Stonyfield’s Know Your Food mobile tour, however, this summer took a different approach. Its strategy involved fewer markets but sticking around for two or three weeks rather than packing up after a day or two. It reached less people but connected with them more often, supplementing activations at large fairs and festivals with retail events, grassroots marketing and guerrilla sampling at each stop.

There is always an element of risk when it comes to launching a new event program. But it can often be even more challenging to build on the success of that program’s first few years. Sure, it’s going great, but which parts of the activation should be expanded in the coming year to gain maximum ROI? Which metrics do you look for to gauge where to grow and where to go? And what strategies should you embed in your program to help you assess how to make the next iteration even more successful?

Consumers are getting more and more cynical, and untrusting of branded communications. Instead of looking to brands for advice and tips on trends and the next new thing, they look to trusted peer experts and tastemakers, frequently online. For years, brands have been aware of this and have been looking for ways to influence those influencers. The problem is complicated. Such attempts are frequently tone-deaf and way off the mark, like paid reviews and blog posts. The other big hurdle is in the strategy. Too often, there isn’t one.

Premium single malt scotch whisky brand The Glenlivet in mid-December gathered its most loyal advocates, which it calls The Glenlivet Guardians, for a photography event in Brooklyn’s artsy DUMBO neighborhood. The program was part of its Dram and Discover series, which launched in the fall and will continue through the spring of 2013. The events are designed to deepen relationships with The Glenlivet drinkers through experiences that tap into their passions and interests.

To promote its television broadcast of “VH1 Divas,” a showcase of today’s top pop singers, the VH1 channel on the afternoon of Dec. 16 sent out a group of carolers to roam the streets of Manhattan to perform songs a capella for passersby in a guerrilla-style effort to get people to tune in. Nevermind the traditional garb or old-time carols, however, as these were no ordinary carolers—they were “diva” carolers decked out in pink and glitz.