LET'S TALK

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Experiential Marketing

Video: Five Mistakes That Can Kill Your Experiential Marketing Program – Part 2

In this video, Jackson CMO David Jones discusses experiential marketing and mistake #2 that can kill your experiential marketing program, the mistake of just showing up.

Video transcript:

Mistake #2 that can kill your experiential marketing program is the mistake of just showing up.

You know, it used to be enough just to hang a banner at an event. Then suddenly, you had to sponsor an athlete or sponsor an event. Then you had to do an integrated program at an event, and none of that’s enough anymore. The days of just showing up and putting up a banner or sponsoring an athlete are really a waste of money any longer; you have to do so much more.

One of the things that we’ve counseled our clients on a lot in the past decade is the idea of “Do less, better”. You may need to go to fewer events, but as you go there, you need to do them better, and you need to integrate across everything that you’re doing.

A great example of that in our marketing space is what Kia has been able to do with their NBA sponsorship. In 2001 to 2007, Hyundai KIA, the parent company—their market-share in North America fluctuated between two and three percent. And then in 2007, KIA started to get involved in the NBA; they had 16 team sponsorships. In 2008, they became a league sponsor. In 2010, they became the All-Star game sponsor and the sponsor of NBA Cares. You may also remember 2010, that was the year that Blake Griffin jumped over a KIA to win the slam dunk contest.

In 2014, they extended their partnership with the NBA and became the official luxury automobile. And interestingly enough, you see some of the LeBron James commercials with the KIA 900 now. Rumor has it that LeBron James contacted KIA through his agent and asked for one of those cars, and that was how the relationship began. And then, even this year, we saw something really, really interesting that most people didn’t notice, but it’s going to have an impact in sports marketing, and that was the KIA logo showing up on the NBA All-Star jerseys. And don’t be surprised if you start to see more and more of that across different American sports much like we see in British soccer.

But the point is the importance to Kia of owning that. If you look at KIA’s market share in 2007 and 2008, Hyundai KIA was at three percent. Today, their combined market share is just over eight percent in the North American auto market. Three percent to eight percent. One percentage point of market share in the U.S. auto market is worth five-and-a-half-billion—with a B—dollars. So you look at what that did (not just because of their NBA sponsorship) but that was the foundation of their marketing program in North America that led to this growth.

So the importance of owning and maximizing events, the importance of “Doing less, better”, is critical because you don’t want to make the mistake of thinking “We’ve got it sponsored, all we have to do is show up”, because that will kill your experiential marketing program.

OFFICES

HQ
864.272.3000
WEST COAST
619.219.2564
KEY CONTACTS
Todd Steen
Kristie GraySmith
Jackson offices
EMPLOYMENT APPLICATION