7 Experiential Marketing Terms Defined

DEFINITIONYour marketing team has been challenged to come up with new ways to promote your brand. You pull your team together and start brainstorming ideas and all of a sudden, someone from the back of the room says, “Let’s do experiential marketing. You know, event marketing or maybe field marketing? Maybe we get some street teams on a mobile vehicle tour to do some guerilla marketing with sampling?”

Wait…what do all of those words mean?

It is really quite simple to define experiential marketing. Read on to see 7 experiential marketing terms defined. We’ll demystify some of the terms used to describe face-to-face engagement.

Category Terms:

  • Experiential Marketing – Bringing a brand to life by building memorable experiences for consumers. Creates Brand Fanatics. This is an umbrella term used in many marketing circles to denote anything that happens in the “Event or Field Marketing” world.
  • Event Marketing – Putting on an event with your brand as the hero. Could be exclusive event or open to public. Concerts, hospitality, sponsorships, a fair or festival are all examples of event marketing.
  • Field Marketing – Grassroots Marketing; local marketing, focused on the needs of local markets; many event and experiential activities are put under the category of “field marketing initiatives”.

Tactical Terms:

  • Guerilla Marketing – Marketing without permission; also called stealth or ambush marketing. Sometimes it makes sense to ambush another event or sponsorship that is sponsored by a competitor. Guerilla marketing is often found at large sporting events like the Olympics. The term also refers to street teams who show up unannounced and without permission in an effort to engage an existing crowd or gathering. In this situation, it is a quick in and out of the area.
  • Street Teams – Feet on the street; a group of Brand Ambassadors who are all representing a specific brand. Street teams offer a quick engagement with consumers with the goal of intercepting as many targeted consumers as possible in an allotted timeframe. Mostly used to distribute product samples or information.
  • Mobile Vehicle Tours – Mobile Trade Shows; Very popular strategy at retail, fairs/festivals, entertainment activities, etc. Involving a customized vehicle that travels throughout a market or the nation promoting a brand with a consistent consumer experience each day. Could be a small passenger vehicle or even a large tractor trailer.
  • Sampling (dry or wet) – Distributing products to consumers; could be inside a retail location, in a retailer’s parking lot, or anywhere it makes sense to capture and deliver an experience for consumers with your products. Activated with Street Teams and Mobile Vehicle Tours and the engagement could be less than a minute or several minutes depending on the interaction and the frame of mind of the consumer at the time of engagement.

So, there you have it!

Do you have any other questions about experiential marketing categories, tactics, terms, or strategies? Contact us today and let us know!