Promo - September 2008 - (Page 17)

German fans cheer at a viewing party Revolution held to promote ESPN’s coverage of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. The Players Richard Te desco EXPERIENTIAL Lasting Impressions Making the experience count In the game of experiential marketing, it isn’t always easy to tell just how many points a marketing company scores with its target audience. Objectives, and the criteria applied to measure the impact of events, vary widely with the type of event. And sometimes the clients don’t have any clear expectations going in or coming out. “Ultimately, success criteria are based on client objectives. Lots of times, they don’t know what they want or what to expect,” says Jeff Gooding, senior vice president of marketing for Revolution. Sometimes setting a goal of simply creating that intangible “buzz” about something may be a client’s way of not messing with metrics—or it may, indeed, be the objective. Revolution ran an awareness campaign for ESPN when it carried live matches from the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. Revolution street teams worked in ethnic neighborhoods—German, Italian, French, Polish, Greek—in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, where interest in the tournament between national European teams ran highest. They put up posters, drew chalk signs on sidewalks, posted tournament schedules in different languages, and held 30 viewing parties during the competition. Revolution estimates that it reached a total of 20 million soccer fans through its integrated campaign. “We kept the messaging fresh. We let them know when their team was going to play. We spoke to the communities in their own languages in their own neighborhoods,” Gooding recounts. In a related program, Revolution mobilized in four markets in June for the debut of EA Sports’ UEFA Euro 2008 video game. Approximately 10,000 people sampled the game in public parks, bars and retail locations. “The goal was to get thousands of people playing the game,” Gooding says. “The ultimate measure of success was how many people tried the game and then bought the game.” Executing the strategy in retail gaming outlets was the surest way to measure the impact, but Revolution could still gauge results within the markets where it ran the promotion. By employing outdoor media, as in Revolution’s effort to pump up the European soccer tourney among aficionados, an agency does basically roll the dice. “Outdoor media is a leap of faith. You have to believe that people are going to see the message,” says Beth Gottlieb, Massive Media’s national program director. Massive favors Segways—those one-man, two-wheel vehicles—carrying 4-foot by 5-foot print ads as “shields” or, better yet, flat-screen plasma displays with video. “In the case of Segways, the medium is almost the message,” Gottlieb says. “They’re a huge hit, particularly in dusk hours.” They were particularly effective in one campaign Massive waged for a New York bank trying to make consumers aware it had changed its name. But beyond the visual impression of the 15 Segways Massive used, there was a tangible count of 100,000 cards distributed by 40 street team members accompanying the vehicles. Continued on page 18 Promo // WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM // September 2008 Promo WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM February 2008 17 http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - September 2008

Promo - September 2008 Contents Editor's Note Consumer Driven Magic Makeover Free Flight Legal Checkup Lasting Impressions Pop A Shop Commentary Squeezed Q&A: Eco-Friendly Champagne Tastes Safety First Resource Center The Agency Center Web Marketing 101 Index of Advertisers

Promo - September 2008

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