Brand Activation and Why It's Vital
Give people a way to experience the benefits of your brand
First-hand experiences change purchase behaviors
Expand your brand activation impact with influencer integration
Brand activations transform people into advocates
Track impact with real-time reporting, promo codes, and onsite sales
Show people how your brand makes a difference
What is a brand activation?
Brand activation brings a brand's value to life with participatory experiences to drive awareness, loyalty, and sales.
It takes many forms - from small popups to large event productions - although the main focus of your brand activation is highlighting how a product makes a difference in people's lives.
Well-designed brand activation experiences are timely, stimulating, and transformative.
Brand activations build trust and are the most effective way to convert people into customers and brand super-fans.
It is a marketing tactic most often applied to consumer packaged goods (CPG), although it is effective for apps and B2B brands.
Firsthand, conversational interactions are one of the best ways to share your story, change brand perception, and influence a target audience's buying behavior.
Ideal brand activations will showcase a product's value when it is the most relevant and in a way where it enhances a person's day.
Brand activations occur on the street, at events, inside malls, on campus, and in other locations.
People often use the word experiential marketing interchangeably with brand activation. Although the difference is that showcasing your product's benefits is at the heart of brand activation, while an experiential event can be more wide-ranging; focusing on a brand campaign, celebrating a holiday, or anything else.
Most companies integrate social media and influencers into brand activations to further leverage their marketing investment.
The best companies create a year-round brand activation schedule to reach and influence new audiences continually.
Brand Activation Services
1.) Strategies to activate your brand
2.) Planning where and when to engage your ideal audience
3.) Location scouting and permits
4.) Asset production (e.g., tents, demo tables, props, outfits, etc.)
5.) Staffing to ensure your brand is appropriately represented
6.) Brand activation transport, setup, implementation, and management
7.) Real-time content planning and capture
8.) Brand activation effectiveness measurement and analysis
Brand Activation Tips
Know thy customer - Center your brand activation around why your customers love your product.
Meet people where they're at - You can host your own event, although leveraging cultural events and festivals is better to ensure a built-in audience.
Don't be serious - Although your brand activation is centered around demonstrating value, best to make it enjoyable, entertaining, and engaging.
Tap influencers - Invite your influencers to brand activation to spread reach beyond the event.
Document everything - Brand activations create fantastic content, from people enjoying your product to customer testimonials.
Storytelling - While your brand activation is about showing value, remember to surround it with an account of your origins, what you stand for, and why customers love it.
Measurement - Brand activations are an investment, ensure you track every metric from social to sales.
Availability
Brand activation marketing services are available in every major US city.
Cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington, DC have multiple opportunities each week for brand activations.
Coverage includes select overseas cities such as Paris, London, Milan, Madrid, Berlin, and Amsterdam.
Brand Activation Onboarding and Process
1.) Share with us your brand goals, vibe, ideal customer profiles, and anything else you believe will be helpful
2.) Receive a brand activation strategy and recommendations on how, when, and where to bring it to life
3.) Approve a brand activation plan
4.) Produce activation elements
5.) Secure event, venue, or city permissions
6.) Prep, staff, manage, and measure activations
7.) Improve your brand activation for future outings
Takeaways
Brand activations show firsthand how your product or service makes a difference in people's lives, and converts them into customers.
Create a brand activation strategy; how, when, and where to engage ideal prospects.
Brand activations are held in a variety of environments.
Leverage your investment before, during, and after the brand activation with social media, influencers, public relations, and partnerships.
Track and assess your brand activation to increase future effectiveness.
Strategic brand activations are one of most effective marketing tactics for a wide range of companies.
Connect
Share your brand activation ideas and goals for a complimentary recommendation and estimate.
Explore More
If the experience you'd like to create is broader then demoing the value of your brand, best to explore Experiential Marketing event.
Brand Activation FAQ
Brand activation marketing is an experience designed to highlight the value your product provides to people.
Activations take place on-the-streets, inside convention centers, at events, and host of other locations, plus typically integrate digital elements.
Brand activations can be part of an experiential event, mobile tour, street team, festival sponsorship, in-store product sampling, and even guerrilla marketing.
The defining factor is to experientially demonstrate the value a brand brings into people's lives.
Showing people how a brand brings value to their life is essential for creating long-lasting customer relationships.
Brand activations garner awareness, likability, and trust.
It directly influences purchase behaviors, and it turns people into brand believers.
Your brand activation strategy wholly depends upon your product and desired outcomes.
All strategies include locations, times, and ways for people to experience the value of your brand.
The most important part of your strategy is to create a welcoming, trusted, repeatable, and transformational experiences to convert people into customers.
In turn, an effective brand activation strategy isn't complete without an irresistible call-to-action and campaign measurement.
Brand activation and experiential marketing are related concepts, but there is a key difference.
Brand activation focuses specifically on creating engagement and awareness around how a brand product or service makes a different in people's lives. It involves providing interactive and memorable demonstrations to increase brand recognition, create positive associations with the brand, and ultimately drive sales.
Experiential marketing may include the above elements but is more wide-ranging, encompassing immersive and memorable event experiences beyond the functional brand benefits.
