How the find the Perfect Brand Ambassador for your Next Experiential Event

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How the find the Perfect Brand Ambassadors for your Next Experiential Event

When it comes to live events, brand ambassadors matter. Your brand is passionate about people, experiences and its partnerships. Whether you’re focusing on event staffing, external promotion or engagement strategies, you’re better off connecting to the industry’s leading minds. Before planning your event, you should figure out the “who’s who” of brand ambassador networking. Check out our brand ambassador tips below.

Tip One: Gather Data During Product Demonstrations

During your brand’s events, conduct product samples. Use booths, feedback, product advertisement and an online portal to garner data. Then, combine the data into an ambassador outreach initiative. Your best ambassadors are dedicated customers. More importantly: They’re dedicated customers who’ve engaged your products and services deeply.

Tip Two: Prioritize Character

Your brand’s ambassadors should be well-connected, but they should also have good character. Personality needs to be in the equation, and it needs to supplement your brand’s best face. It might sound superficial, but an ambassador’s presence at an experiential event needs to be a positive one. Is your potential ambassador well-liked? How much influence do they have? Connect with the industry’s hottest talent, and focus on ambassadors customers take seriously.

Tip Three: Use Social Media as a Tool

Next, you should boost your ambassador’s presence on social media. Potential clients and customers are social, and they’ll flock to a prevalent social media figure who’s representing your brand in style. In 2017, social media interaction is vital. To avoid any misconceptions, the spread of false information and even false promotion starts, craft a social media marketing campaign with your ambassador in mind. Even if they’re physically present at your event, they’ll need to appear on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to properly connect with consumers. Promotion doesn't end at an experiential event, and the best events keep attendees immersed in the digital world. 

Tip Four: Connect with a Performer

Experiential events, at the end of the day, are about experiences. Your brand’s ambassador shouldn’t only represent you—they should represent your brand’s ability to showcase products, engage its fans and supply high-energy environments. On some level, your ambassador should be a performer. Even if they’re not famous, an entertainer can be a fantastic ambassador. Find a musician, an artist or a moving speaker. Discuss your brand with them, and connect with their self-promotion strategies. Famous stars have worked as brand ambassadors in the past. A lot of them work for endorsements, too.

Tip Five: Take Them Out to Dinner

Are you browsing a healthy list of potentials? Take them out to dinner. Have a few drinks! No, it isn’t too casual. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to determine who’s personable and who isn’t. Modern experiential events prioritize consumer engagement. Today’s live marketing events focus on blowing past age-old, impersonal business strategies. In general, your brand ambassador needs to be empathetic, positive and engaging. Their ability to connect in a casual event matters. In many ways, an informal meeting’s utility surpasses the utility provided by an office.

So, who’s your brand’s next ambassador? Check out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. See who’s trending. Work a promotional campaign, and gather some data. Gather the industry’s hottest minds, and hit the restaurants. Once you’ve narrowed the list down, craft a solid marketing campaign. The world of experiential marketing is huge, and it’s best traveled with a brand ambassador at your side. Good luck out there.  

How to Know if Your Brand is Ready for a Pop Up Event

If your brand is like most brands, timing is key. In the business world, pop-up events aren’t used every day—and for good reason. They’re tough to advertise, tough to maintain and very tough to make effective. Experiential marketing of any type gives a brand opportunities to engage with the public. Unlike traditional advertising campaigns, experiential marketing campaigns rely on timing, a good eye and motivating features to succeed.

So, is your brand ready for a pop-up event? We’re about to break it down for you.

Are Your Goals Defined?

Before starting a pop-up campaign, you should nail down your goals. Consider your key messages, and make sure you can measure results. The only way to measure results is through goal definition. Before ever executing your campaign, make sure you have your brand’s message, outreach opportunities and future capabilities grafted.

Do You Have a Target Audience?

Your pop-up’s target audience is not the same as your brand’s. It is, however, part of it. Who will likely see the pop-up event? Is your brand already hitting it off with this group? If you’re capable of reaching this target audience already, you might be ready for a pop-up experience. Just make sure you’re able to gain the audience’s attraction before setting foot inside the pop-up world.

Do You Have a Secure Venue?

Next, you should make sure your venue is tied down. Consider the venue’s spatial requirements, and determine which performers you’ll use. If you’re lucky enough to have a venue, it’s time for an experiential event in conjunction with your pop-up event. The double-hitter might seem disjointed, but it’s entirely conducive to a fully formed strategy. Having 70,000 square feet available is good for attracting pop-up crowds—even if the pop-up is hitting the city streets beyond.

Do You Have Attractive Offers?

Next, you should come to terms with your brand’s ability to offer value. Can you provide sufficiently attractive offers? What about discounts? What have your brand’s past visitors been attracted to? If you’re able to take a small money hit, consider implementing a pop-up campaign to boost long-term revenue.

Do You Have a Strong Online Marketing Team?

If you’ve recently worked with an online marketing team—either in-house or third-party—you’re ready to implement a pop-up campaign. Effective pop-up experiences are based on research, and the Internet crowd is inherently useful as a pop-up fanbase. Between e-commerce opportunities, growth hacks and lead generation, an online marketing team is your one-stop shop to success.

Can You Garner In-Depth Feedback?

Many modern marketers make a mistake: They start pop-up campaigns without being able to garner reviews, feedback and subjective opinions. In 2017, quality written feedback is as important as raw data. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t see it as such.

Before starting a pop-up campaign, make sure you’re able to get in-depth reviews, comments and rundowns of your event’s “job well done.” High-quality reviews are necessary to connect a brand’s on-the-street efforts with social media marketing campaigns—which are vital to overall marketing success.

Do You Have a New Revenue Stream to Test?

We don’t suggest getting too experimental with your experiential campaign, but you should use it to gauge a new revenue stream’s long-term viability. Pop-up stands are great for gaining consumer trust, and they’re similarly great for examining possible revenue stream possibilities. Assuming you can popularize your brand’s image and execute an event adequately, you’ll have little trouble measuring future potential revenue.

So, where does your brand stand? Is it ready for a pop-up campaign? Be honest with yourself, and make sure you’re taking advantage of every opportunity. Your brand partners will thank you. More importantly, so will your customers.

How to Make Your Corporate Event or Party Eco-Friendly

How to Make Your Corporate Event or Party Eco-Friendly

Every company can get extra goodwill by making their event or corporate party more eco-friendly. However, it can seem hard to do this when you have to serve or entertain large groups of people. How can you minimize the environmental footprint of 100 or even 1,000 event attendees? Fortunately, there are ways to set up your events so that even large ones have elements that are easier on the environment than their alternatives. Here are some ideas you can implement without much trouble:

Choose Reusable Tableware

Washing dishes requires soap and water, but the alternative – paper and plastic – is even worse for the environment. Paper production uses much more water than washing, and it typically results in large amounts of pollution thanks to the use of bleaches and dyes in the production process. Plastic, of course, is a petroleum product. Even worse, plastic doesn't degrade within a reasonable timeframe (some say it takes 500 years to disappear). Eliminating both paper and plastic is clearly the eco-friendly move.

Serve Vegetarian Meals

A good caterer can make vegetarian food taste great, and if your event calls for snacks and sandwiches instead of dinners, your guests may not even notice that meat isn't on the menu. The environmental benefit results from the efficiency of growing vegetables and grains compared to that of raising meat.

Why avoid meat? Raising meat animals produces pollution in the form of animal waste, contributes to greenhouse gas levels due to methane excretion, and requires more food since the feed has to go through another layer before it gets to you. Plants are much cleaner to grow, and they're more efficient because when you eat them directly, you essentially "cut out the middleman" of the food chain.

Hold Your Event in a Big City

When you have your event in a big city like Miami, your guests will be able to reach the venue via public transportation. This, of course, cuts down on the amount of gas used and air pollution produced. As a bonus, the area will have plenty of other things to do after your event ends, and your guests will love the extra entertainment possibilities.

Use Digital Signage

Many events are festooned with a wide variety of posters, pennants, and other printed materials. When the event ends, all of this paper is simply thrown away. Avoid all of that waste by using digital signs. Thanks to today's lightweight flat screens, these signs can be mounted in stands as well as hung on walls. Since they're digital, there's no need to throw them out when the current graphics become obsolete. Simply program them with new images for your next event. Alternatively, rent digital signs and simply hand them in to the rental company after your event ends.

Use Recycled Paper for Printed Materials

Digital signs eliminate the need for much paper, but you still may want to print out programs, brochures, or business cards for your event. In these cases, use paper that is totally or partially recycled to minimize your ecological footprint.

Avoid Plastic Water Bottles

Provide reusable bottles instead and have refill stations set up so guests can get more water as it is needed. If you just can't see going without the traditional plastic kind, set up recycle bins to collect them as they're emptied. Look for water brands that use recycled plastic for their bottles, too.

Rent Durable Materials

Venues such as our Soho Studios offer the chance to rent props, carpets, and other essentials for your event. Choose this option to avoid needlessly throwing away or endlessly storing items that could actually be used for years. If you do buy your own accessories, donate them to charities if you won't be reusing them.

Use Energy-Efficient Items

Many events require special gear. Make sure to choose the most efficient versions that will do the job. One suggestion is to make sure that you have LED lighting whenever possible. These lights are some of the most efficient readily-available ones on the market today.

Mention How Eco-Friendly Your Event Will Be

Helping the environment is great on its own, but the purpose of a corporate event is marketing. Be sure to let everyone know that your event is as green as possible and mention specific steps you've taken to make it that way. This will ensure that you get the expected bump in goodwill.

These are just some of the ways you can make your event more eco-friendly. Even if you can only implement some of them, you'll have a greener event than you would if you used the old-fashioned versions of everything.

For a highly flexible venue in Miami, choose Soho Studios. We have up to 70,000 square feet of configurable space and rental options for all major event elements.

How L’Oréal Paris Keeps it Fresh with Consumers

L’Oréal Paris might be a beauty brand, but it has some DIY chops, too. In celebration of its newest product lines, the brand hosted a “Galentine’s Day” party in New York’s West Edge. February 13, the event’s day, was an unofficial holiday for L’Oréal Paris, featured on NBC’s Parks and Recreation. Centered on events for women, the faux holiday was powered by L’Oréal Paris spokeswoman, Blake Lively. High-fashion décor, activities and music were had, as well as Valentine’s Day card creation.

Design Elements and the Art of DIY

The event catered to jewelry-lovers, too. Attendees could have their necklaces engraved, check out new fashion options and compare styles. Cookie decoration highlighted the event’s sweet tooth touch, and a variety of celeb-hosted introductions brought the average consumer’s vision to life.

There were about 15 DIY stations. Guests could listen to DJ Vashtie songs, get their feet wet with crafts and check out classic clips gathered from a variety of memorable movies and television shows. All products on display, of course, were up for grabs. The combination of practical DIY and digital is a good one, and L’Oréal Paris decision makers took on several beauty influencers who snapped, posted and shared photos.

Explore, Discover and Share

The event’s mantra was “explore, discover and share.” Non-traditional lighting, instrumentation and DIY stands certainly turned the age-old event participation approach on its head. Guests were urged to snap their best creations, creating environments capable of reaching high visibility on social media. Aside from L’Oréal Paris’s influencers, the event received attendance from a 300-plus crowd. V.I.P. members, of course, came out to play. L’Oréal Paris president, Tim Coolican, was one such memorable face. Other notable figures, like actress Robyn Lively, similarly attended.

Product Launches and Crafts

The arts-and-crafts area was covered by a lush, floral canopy. The area was outfitted by Tinsel & Twine and Agency, empowering the creativity of attendees. DIY card-making may not seem like a profitable event investment at first, but the event’s station packed plenty of embellishments capable of packing in personalized touches. Paper Fashion’s Katie Rodgers, meanwhile, offered highly customized guest illustrations. At every level, the event was attendee-centric.

When you combine Polaroid cameras, quirky props and several impromptu photo shoots, you’re set up for success. Take note: L’Oréal Paris has quickly become one of this year’s most notable DIY pop-up event providers, mostly due to their consumer dedication. In the world of event marketing, few brands get it better.

Beyond the Music: What Makes a Festival a Truly Memorable Event

Music festival sponsorships have long been parts of marketing, but all too often, the audience only remembers the band after it's all over. This is because companies tend to stick to boring signs of sponsorship, such as banners on fences, that do nothing to engage the audience. Even if a banner is plastered across the top of the stage, it fades from notice the moment a hot band strikes the first note. What can you do to ensure that your brand actually becomes part of the show instead of another thing in the background? The key is to give the audience a serious chance to truly interact with your products or services in a way that matches the look and feel of the rest of the event. Toyota is a master of this, and looking at what they've done should spark some ideas for your own events.

The Cars Are Really Parts of the Event

Many automakers do no more than park their cars around when they host an event. This isn't the case for Toyota, though: They made their vehicles an interactive part of one of their music festivals lately. There, patrons partook in activities like competing to see how many objects they could cram into the cargo area of a car or minivan, using the back of a minivan as a climb-in vending machine, and more.

Interactive Zones

Say goodbye to boring souvenir stands with standardized trinkets. Toyota had guests make their festival mementos on the spot using Shrinky Dinks and other such craft items. This gave everyone who got one a unique memory to go with the experience, so they'll remember this part of the event for a long time. Of course, all mementos were also branded so everyone will always have that extra reminder of the sponsor's identity.

Taking the Test Drive Up to 11

At exciting events like these, it would be a letdown to just have people putter around in a regular car. Yet, it is important to get people into Toyotas in driving situations so they're one step closer to buying. The solution? Have the people take the company's trucks over an off-road course. Logs and ramps make the vehicles' maneuverability come to life as drivers have fun.

Choosing a Venue

Music festivals can be held in all sorts of venues, ranging from arenas that are fully under roof all the way to fairgrounds that are entirely outdoors. When you want to be under roof in Miami, consider Soho Studios. Our venue offers up to 70,000 square feet and can be configured any way you'd like.

How to Spice Up that Boring Sales Luncheon

Business luncheons are great ways to attract customers, recognize existing ones and make your brand a hit. Sometimes, however, run-of-the-mill luncheons can become boring. It isn’t every day a business owner attracts new customers with great possibilities, and it isn’t every day a lunch proposal is dished out with an awesome event tie-in. Spice up the age-old luncheon, and tie in these awesome ideas:

One: Get High-Grade with Luxury Cars

Sales luncheons, kick-off dining dates and food-centric events pair well with luxury cars. You can promote your brand alongside, leading models, using videos, posters and racing wear to represent your business’s finer aspects. You can even use a car dealership to represent your event, getting down to the nitty gritty, car-wise, with test drives and enthusiast discussions.

Two: Make a Survival Game

Survival-based media is in. If you’re a fitness brand, an outdoor-centric provider or a booming business involved in lifestyle marketing, a survival game can greatly impact your customers. Design strategies to fit your customers, and help them uncover hidden business opportunities via desert, urban and park-based survival games.

Three: Take it to the Food Factory

If you want to add a unique angle, try bringing your luncheon-goers to a food factory. Consider chocolate factories, breweries, gourmet food factories and similar locations. By showing an appreciation for the industrial process, you’ll get your points across easier. You’ll also stick out as one of the more interesting luncheon’s your potential buyers have had. Unique experiences are bred by unique locations, and your entrees, appetizers, and desserts needn’t be confined to a restaurant.

Four: Let Them Build

No, you won’t sacrifice entertainment and food for hard work, but a little creative building goes a long way. Imbue your event with a construction theme, a puzzle theme or an artistic theme. Then, offer events to help build constructive team relationships. As for the food, it is a luncheon. Make sure you prioritize the food, because it still holds prevalence over venues housing dramatic architectural designs.

Five: Give a Blast from the Past

Sometimes, your business’s old CEOs should have a seat in current sales luncheons. Provide a reunion, and invite old employees, managers and business impactors. If your potential buyers are in the B2B realm, consider inviting old industry impactors, social leaders or cross-market representatives. The more the merrier, right?

Your business luncheon can be action-packed, enticing, mysterious and even memorable. Studies show surrounding events impact one’s perception of food taste. If you can outfit your event’s every aspect, you’ll impress the guests. You’ll give them a reason to come back for more.

The Pop-Tarts Pop-Up Café Gets Experimental

In New York, Pop-Tarts has gotten adventurous. Kellogg’s is offering unique flavor taste tests in one of the more interesting pop-up stands we’ve seen. The menu isn’t your typical assortment of pastry options, as it’s an assortment of high-tart tacos, Pop-Tart pizza and chili Pop-Tart fries. For a drink, visitors can sample the Pop-Tart milkshake—blended from the pastry. Times Square has always been an area conducive to exploration. Now, it’s an area of opportunity for Kellogg’s.

The Times Square Cereal Bar

The Pop-Tarts Café arose last Tuesday. It’s acquired the brand’s Time Square cereal bar space, taking advantage of the Times Square traffic and adventurous New York pedestrians. The Kellogg’s creative menu aimed to reinvent the way consumers eat Pop-Tarts, mixing, mashing and combining a variety of flavors to create new experiences.

Why? Kellogg’s felt its brand required a new, finer attention to detail. It wasn’t necessarily about branding new tastes, it was about presenting a new method of consumption. In an effort to connect with consumers, promote the pastries and revamp the age-old “breakfast snack,” Kellogg’s has turned Pop-Tarts into an any-time-of-day meal. Birthday Fiesta Nachos and Chili Pop-Tart Fries, in particular, made appearances as the brand’s go-to, around-the-clock meal options.

Other Locations

You guessed it: Time Square wasn’t the only Pop-Tarts Café location. Taste-goers wanting to try something new can check out Kellogg’s locations in Chicago and Philadelphia. A lot of Pop-Tarts lovers are having difficulty resisting the variety of concoctions, engaging the brand at unprecedented rates.

Oddly enough, the flavor combinations work. Those hungry for pizza can dig into a Personal Pop-Tarts Pizza, crafted with frosted brown sugar cinnamon crust, frosting “cheese” and strawberry “marinara” sauce. While event-goers may be weirded out by the presentation, each Pop-Tart pastry shape is incredibly tasty. By mixing fresh mint, a variety of fruit flavors and the Pop-Tarts signature crust, Kellogg’s has snuck in new line favorites to its trusted customers.

All About the Swag

Few events can survive without a little swag. The Pop-Tarts Café offered small surprises to perfect every order, crafting creative lists from a variety of mashups. All too often, popular food brands overextend themselves. They’re too generic; too focused on pleasing everyone. The Pop-Tarts Café certainly offers something different. While the flavors are classic and instantly recognizable, Kellogg’s has proved that presentation counts.

The Kellogg’s The Pop-Tarts Café packs 18 delicious Pop-Tart eating options, served a-la-carte. Eventgoers who’re having difficulty committing to a singular food item can take advantage of Pop-Tart flights, expanding their dining options with numerous eating options. In the realm of experiential marketing, Kellogg’s proves that experimental works, too.

How to Wow People with a Vegan Menu

If you're going to be serving food at your event, it's important to choose menu items that everyone can and will eat. This will be hard if you try to make a different menu for all of the many common dietary variations. Instead, try combining gluten-free and vegan to create dishes that almost everyone will love. One of the most important things you'll need to keep in mind is the difference between vegetarian and vegan. Vegetarian dishes may include eggs, milk, and other products that ultimately come from animals. Vegan food, on the other hand, includes none of that. Only plants and plant products are allowed.

Choosing the Menu Items

The key to wowing a mixed-preference audience with vegan dishes is to avoid the bland, diet-type fare non-vegans often associate with this type of food. Instead, make sure the meals are tasty. Hire caterers that use spices and sauces liberally to pump up the flavor volume and add delicious-looking color to the dishes. Also, make sure that your catering company is used to cooking for vegans. Such companies will have plenty of delicious recipes already developed.

If You Can Field Two Menus, Offer Both Meat and Meat-Free Options

When you're providing lunch, meat-eaters likely won't be too put out if they don't get any meat in the meal. The same cannot be said of dinner. Unless your company gets marketing points from going all-vegan, offer a meat-included menu for this meal along with the vegan one. Note, however, that some vegans insist that their food be cooked in different areas than those used to cook meat! Fortunately, there are some caterers out there that will actually cater to even this demand.

Always Remember the Possibility of Allergies

The days when you could just serve a mystery sauce or meal are over. For reasons that are not quite understood, the incidence of life-threatening food allergies is higher than it was just 30 or 40 years ago. Therefore, you should always list potential food allergens. It's also important to know for certain exactly what is in everything, vegan or not.

This isn't to say that it's dangerous to serve meals. You simply need to know what is in all of the food so you and your staff can give accurate answers to those who ask about the ingredients.

With these things in mind, you'll be able to serve anything from a snack to a feast and have it be both safe and impressive. The final thing you'll need is a venue. If your event is in Miami, try our event and exhibition area here at Soho Studios. We offer up to 70,000 square feet that can be configured to meet all of your event needs.

EverBlock: Bringing Dreams to Reality

Every kid has dreamed of being able to get life-sized LEGO that can be used for real buildings. Now, thanks to EverBlock, this concept has become a reality. EverBlock makes what is generically known as "modular building blocks." Each one is approximately the size of a concrete block, but with some very important differences: They're made of light concrete, and they're as easy to put together as the toy versions. This development is revolutionizing the events industry since it allows organizers to construct and take down displays within hours, while making the same sort of displays with the same sturdiness would ordinarily take days. Not only that, the blocks can be used over and over again - a feature that saves organizers thousands of dollars over time.

In a recent video, EverBlock showed how an entire "ice castle" shell can be made in just five hours by a small crew. The construction itself became part of the experience for those who saw it going up, and passers-by were taking selfies with the work-in-progress before they even knew what the finished project would be. Once the castle was fully up, it attracted even more attention.

Making Your Own Displays Pop

While speedy setup and take-down are important, the most important aspect of any display is its eye-catching creativity. Using these blocks makes it easy to bring almost any idea into 3D reality. As with toy building blocks, the first step is to plan out the design. This way, you know you'll have enough blocks in all of the right colors. Do this far enough before the show to allow you to buy any more that you might need – you'd hate to run out and have a big gap in your construct come showtime!

Then, you need a large enough space to put up your planned set. This is where venues like ours here at Soho Studios in Miami come in. While a block structure can be set up outdoors, you'll most likely want to have it inside instead. An indoor location makes your event immune to bad weather, greatly reduces the chance of vandalism, and extends the potential viewing hours in the day.

Other Uses for Modular Blocks

Many exhibits are divided into separate areas to allow for different themes, help guide people through in specific patterns, and similar reasons. Modular building blocks are great for erecting temporary walls that look professional and are sturdier than the normal thin partitions. They also come in many colors, so you can easily stick to a theme or mix them up for a fun look.

When it's time for you to have an exhibit in Miami, contact us here at Soho Studios. Our 70,000 sq. ft. venue can be divided up to meet the needs of almost any size of show.