How Lexus Created Top Models for New York Fashion Week

How Lexus Created Top Models for New York Fashion Week  

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Ever wondered what it'd be like to be a model for New York Fashion Week? This past September, during New York Fashion Week, luxury car maker Lexus hosted a first-of-its-kind event that allowed show attendees to enjoy a sneak peek for themselves. Their unique "Set in Motion" photo shoot invited members of the public to experience first-hand what it's like to be photographed as a model during what is typically an exclusive event.

Lexus "Set in Motion" Photo Shoot Experience at NYFW

Specifically, the "Set in Motion" photo shoot began with guests entering the installation (the set of which was actually inspired and designed around the new Lexus LC 500) and having a quick Polaroid photo snapped, just as New York Fashion Week models do as part of their open casting calls. That Polaroid then served as a guest's "ticket" to get into the Green Room Lounge, a luxurious space where hair and makeup professionals then treated each participant to beauty treatments, light refreshments, and a small take-home gift. Once participants were looking their runway best, they were ushered onto the stunning set and walked through a photo shoot experience with a professional photographer. And of course, alongside participants during their shoot was a stunning, $92,000 Lexus LC 500.

At the end of the mini-shoot, each participant was able to look through their photos in the comfort of the Green Room Lounge and select their favorite. They were then provided with their own printed copy of their favorite photo, along with the option to share it on social media. The entire experience, for most guests, took about an hour and was a wonderful and unique way to experience an insider's look at New York Fashion Week. And for many participants, this was a great way to step outside of one's typical "comfort zone" and try something completely new. Even those who have trouble taking a flattering selfie were impressed with how their photos turned out!

From Exclusive to All-Inclusive

The Set in Motion photo shoot proved to be a huge hit at New York Fashion Week and was heavily attended throughout the entire weekend, and not surprisingly. This was the first exhibit of its kind and served the excellent purpose of not only spreading awareness of the new Lexus LC 500, but gave attendees an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look while empowering each participant to look and feel confident. Overall, Lexus was pleased with the way the exhibit turned out, explaining that they wanted to take an event that is typically seen as exclusive to industry players and open it up to make it inclusive enough for the general public. Lexus also provided their usual fleet of almost 100 courtesy vehicles to be on display for the show itself.

Given the success of the Set in Motion photo shoot, it will be interesting to see if other companies will follow suit with similar inclusive events in the future. Either way, we're loving the way this was pulled off and give Lexus kudos for this innovative approach! Looking for an incredible venue in which to host your next event in the Miami area? Soho Studios has you covered! With both indoor and outdoor event spaces and countless configurations, we'd love to help make your next event a success.

How to: Do's and Don'ts of Holiday Event Planning

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How To: Do's and Don'ts of Holiday Event Planning

Holidays are great event occasions. Sometimes, however, the holiday cheer gets in the way. If you’re planning a holiday-centric business event, make sure you’re packing in the essential ingredients. Also, avoid the pitfalls associated with holiday meet-ups.

Soho Studios has the resources you need to make an awesome holiday event. If you need room, need ideas and need a good host, we’re here to help. Before you settle on a location, though, check out these holiday event do’s and don’ts.

Do Have Good Timing

Holiday ads, event invites and shout-outs during late summer can annoy customers. The Christmas creep exists, but it isn’t going away. Target the holiday’s early birds, sure, but don’t blast them with event reminders when it’s too early. Maximize the November weeks. If you’re planning a summer event, don’t give notice two months before the actual event.

Do Use Technology Benefits

Connect to users via mobile. If you’re hopping on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday train, offer discounts at your event. Make technology an integral part of your business’s meetup, and give customers mobile-exclusive access to discounts, promotions and rare opportunities. If you can, integrate virtual reality and augmented reality.

Do Offer Entertainment and Refreshments

It’s a holiday, after all. Your brand’s biggest fans have things to do. They’re going to other parties. If you’re going to create a holiday-centric event, give event-goers a way to let loose. They’ll be enticed by a branded event which offers live entertainment, drinks and a place to party. As a rule of thumb: Offer shuttle rides, unique drink offers and food.

Don’t Plan Over a Big Weekend

The holidays are packed with traffic, bustling shoppers and busy families. If you want your event to take off, make sure it’s in the average eventgoer’s “free spots.” If possible, avoid Friday and Saturday nights. Plan to kick off the event before the holiday’s date and give customers easy access to your location.

Don’t Forget Social Media

Too many brands forget about the power of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Social media sites are buzzing with activity over the holidays. Work is cut short, school is out and newsfeeds are watched closely. If you leave out the social media angle, you’ll miss a huge opportunity. Help customers connect, and make social media networking a big part of your holiday event.

Don’t Push Your Products

If you’re creating an event around Thanksgiving or Christmas, you shouldn’t make your brand’s products or services the main focus. It’s a time for celebration. Connect with consumers. Offer live demos, sure, but don’t make money the event’s main focus. If you do, eventgoers will get the wrong impression. During the holidays, a lot of brands advertise to make a profit. If you want to stand out, you’ll need to take the higher ground.

Make sure your vent has unique highlights, and promote its success on social media. Good event planning exists before, during and after an event. To resonate with your customers, you’ll need to educate yourself on their social media activity, favorite engagement strategies and personal preferences. More than ever, your brand will need to appeal to its audience with laser precision.

Make your campaign powerful. Zero in on your audience. Contact us today, and check out our event availability. Between great rates, holiday hosting opportunities and great planning options, Soho Studios is the place to settle in during the holidays. We’re brimming with ideas, and we can make sure your brand’s holiday is a cheerful one. Exceptional events aren’t born overnight. They require time, a knack for fun and some holiday cheer to work. So, stop on by! We’re ready to party.

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.  

Why Sharing Post Event Photos Can Boost Engagement

To have a stand-out event, you need to keep attendees engaged before, during and after. Taking photos during your event can boost post-event engagement. Sometimes, however, organizing a marketable and photogenic event is half the battle. If you can share event photos, however, you can ensure top-quality engagement strategies and long-term success. Below, we’re covering the ins and outs of post event photos—straight from the inside of events, themselves.

Photos and Social Media Engagement

A March 2014 research project published through eMarketer recorded a 75-percent roundup of all content posted across worldwide Facebook pages. From the social media user’s perspective, photos are one of the most engaging content types in social media. Boasting an 87-percent interaction rate for fans, photos receive a majority of attention.

Social media and experiential events go hand in hand. Consumers want to be recognized—and so does your brand. To share photos which’ll interest your target audience, you’ll need events worth capturing. Because today’s Newsfeed is laden with random pictures, advertisements and profile updates, a little excitement can go a long way.

High-Quality Photos Stick Out

The key, here, is to offer exciting photo opportunities. By posting photos reflective of your event’s greater aspects, you can highlight your brand’s attention to detail. Plus, you’ll show Facebook-lovers why your business was born to be remembered.

Event photos needn’t be entirely under your control, either. Fan engagement is worth a thousand words, alone, and “caption this” photos can directly increase engagement while holding true to your brand’s image. Post funny post-event pictures, and ask fans to create cool, or funny, captions. Avoid selfies when possible, and hire a visual content creator or designer to engage your social media team.

Crossing into the Twitter World

Social media users engage differently with every tweet. That said, adding a photo to a tweet URL can boost retweet power by as much as 35 percent. Like Facebook, Twitter engagement is powered by visual media. You’ll need to tag event-goers, sure, but Twitter’s tagging mechanics allow for a 10-person tag. You can additionally share up to four photos per tweet. It’s a new Twitter feature, but it’s a powerful one nonetheless.

Shares and Engagement

Social media, for some, is the Wild West of marketing. Comments and shares have surpassed likes on Facebook, in terms of importance. Brand engagement is at an all-time high, and Facebook comments are steadily increasing in number every year. On the flip-side, likes are decreasing in importance.

Fan comments and shares result in engagement. So, you’ll need comments and shares to influence ongoing visibility. Fortunately, Facebook event and business pages are conducive to shares and comments. Engagement begins in the social media world, but it ends with cross-channel brand marketing. Just make sure you’re replying to all fan comments.

As a takeaway: Post your event photos on a Friday. Friday is the social media world’s highest engagement day, and it’ll spike fan attention if it’s used to your advantage. The visual promotion trend is much more than a trend. It’s a cornerstone of modern marketing.

The Ultimate Guide to Planning and Producing an Experiential Event

The Ultimate Guide to Planning and Producing an Experiential Event

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At Soho Studios we have hosted some of the best experiential marketing events that Miami has seen.  From offering food, to presenting new products, to creating the best experiences for your guests, we have been a part what it takes to create an experiential event that exceeds guest expectations.  

It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to put together an experiential event.  We have put together a quick guide that will help you think about creating the next winning event for your brand.  Grab this free guide and use it as a reference for you and your marketing team. 
Get your Guide here or click the photo below.

How Perrier Lunch Break Maintains its Popularity Into 2017

How Perrier Lunch Break Maintains its Popularity Into 2017

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The Perrier Lunch Break returned in 2017 after having a very successful run the year before. In it, dance parties are hosted by Perrier that feature quirky characters and hot air balloons. The unusual decorating scheme gives the events a fantastical, fun atmosphere that is instantly recognizable. Another unusual choice Perrier has made is to hold them during or near the lunch hours instead of the traditional times for dancing and partying.

Perrier has made these and other choices to highlight its product as being unusual compared to the alternatives. It ties in perfectly with its branding as Perrier Extraordinaire and will surely make attendees think of the sparkling water when they host parties of their own.

This event wasn't originally sponsored by Perrier, but instead, started out under the umbrella of vodka company Absolut. The company set up events at several popular nightclubs, which were glad to host it and bring in customers during what had been their off-hours.

The maiin reason for the event's growth is the change in the experience brought on by Perrier's sponsorship. This company took it from being a sparse event that simply mentioned a brand of vodka to a full-on engineered experience. As word of the change spread, more and more people attended in expectation of actually having a fun time. Now, some clubs host over 400 people when they hold Lunch Break events.

Notably, Perrier doesn't directly control all aspects of the events it sponsors. Instead, club owners are given plenty of latitude in terms of design, which musical acts are hired, and more. This allows each club to customize the experience to meet the tastes of their audiences, while Perrier provides just enough guidance to ensure that certain branding objectives are met.

During the events, it is typical for DJs play the latest trendy music while people enjoy a drink or two and have a dance. Then, when the event is over, each attendee is given a take-out bag of lunch to eat. Long lines can be expected at nightclubs that have had these events before, proving their popularity.

Perrier Lunch Break dancing events take place in major cities around the United States. New York city sometimes hosts multiple parties, and cities like Miami, Los Angeles, and Chicago also get their share. Other big, trendsetting metropoles are also included.

While Perrier isn't explicitly promoting the idea of social media sharing through the use of incentives, it is typical for people to go ahead and share anyway. This year's kickoff event in New York, for example, was so exciting that it gained 20 million social media views just from natural postings.

There's no need to have a giant marketing budget to sponsor a big, exciting party or other experiential marketing event. All you need to get started is a fun idea and a venue. In Miami, consider Soho Studios for your event location. We have up to 70,000 square feet of indoor space available, and we can provide all the help you need to design, configure, and outfit that area for your extravaganza. Our location also has two outdoor pavilions, so you can also party under the sun or stars.

How Rick and Morty are Taking on the Road

How Rick and Morty are Taking on the Road

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While the "marketing" aspect of experiential marketing almost necessarily involves trying to sell a product, service, or idea to new people, it isn't always the only goal. Sometimes, events are held to reward current loyal fans – or as it may be put, "spread the love" to these people. This is the case with Adult Swim's Rickmobile, which is a traveling pop-up retail shop making stops in several cities and towns this summer. Adult Swim is making a point of hitting cities that are often overlooked by marketers, such as Cleveland, Santa Fe, and San Antonio as well as some of the more predictable places.

The Rickmobile is patterned after the character Rick in the series Rick and Morty, complete with a painted Styrofoam-and-fiberglass Rick on one end. From the side, the vehicle opens to display plenty of Rick and Morty merchandise. This gives fans a chance to stock up, and the eye-catching nature of the vehicle ensures that even people who have never seen the show will be curious enough to come and find out what the display is about.

In keeping with the fun and youthful nature of the show, the Rickmobile's stops have been chosen for their similarly fun nature. Comic shops and conventions and arcades are on the list. For older fans, the Rickmobile will stop at taverns, bars, and other such "social spaces." By combining the event types while sticking to ones that are associated with fun, the show will be able to reach people of all ages without diluting its messaging.

According to Adult Swim's Jim Babcock, its vice president of consumer marketing, the intent was to create moments akin to seeing the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for the first time. He characterized it as "unforgettable," and the Rickmobile is going for the same effect. Adult Swim also wants the scene to be hilarious, and it posed its giant Rick so it would surely get a laugh. Rick is on his hands and knees as seen from the side, and stares slightly downward from the back of the truck. Those following it on the freeway therefore get to look right at the mad professor's giant eyes as he stares down through their windshields. It's sure to give anyone who ends up behind the vehicle plenty to talk about with everyone they know.

Since this tour is already in progress, preliminary results are coming in. By the time it made 12 stops, it registered 5,000 transactions and got 15,000 people to engage with the Rickmobile. It also caused people to tweet about it 15,000 times and post about it on Instagram 7,500 times. This caused messages about it to be seen over 10 million times. Such a resounding success is sure to bring more viewers to the Rick and Morty show!

You don't need to custom-make an expensive truck or tour across the country to reach people with your experiential marketing event. For a less-extravagant option, try renting a venue in a big city. Here in Miami, try Soho Studios. We can configure up to 70,000 feet of indoor space to suit your needs or provide one or both of our outdoor pavilions for events out in the open.

How Wahaca Grew its Brand Using Experiential Marketing

How Wahaca Grew its Brand Using Experiential Marketing

You might be uncertain about whether experiential marketing could benefit your brand and how it could actually help you grow. So let’s look at the case study of Wahaca as an example of a company using this type of marketing to move from one restaurant to 24.

In case you don’t know, Wahaca is a restaurant chain throughout the United Kingdom. Its head of marketing, Oli Ingham, has found innovative ways to market it using experiential marketing. Let’s take a look at Wahaca’s marketing and how your brand might be able to use similar techniques.

How Ingham Grew Wahaca’s Brand

Oli Ingham used experiential marketing well by taking the theme of the brand, which is Mexican food based on the markets of Mexico or what he calls “amazing Mexican food”, and turning that into events that could help local British people connect to the restaurant brand. But he also goes beyond the food to create experiences based on Mexican culture. 

The brand puts on numerous types of events that provide cultural and food-based experiences, including a Mexican-inspired film screening and a Day of the Dead festival. Its Taco Tour offers a mobile tasting experience through its taco van traveling the streets and introducing the food to new customers. Ingham created a supper club that allows local people to experience the food of different Mexican regions.

Sometimes, the events are more specific to the restaurant itself than to Mexican culture or cuisine. For instance, the restaurant is putting on a 10th anniversary event series and has promoted a “spoon amnesty” program that encourages customers to bring back the restaurant's "borrowed" colorful spoons in return for tacos. 

Applying Ingham’s Examples

How are Ingham’s experiential marketing techniques effective? Some of the experiences Wahaca uses work because they bring in new audiences. For example, people might stumble upon the taco van when it’s touring the area or they might attend a festival or Latin DJ event and then discover the food. In other cases, the events create an interest in Mexico’s culture and food. People from another area of the world – in this case, the UK – enjoy experiencing foods they didn’t know were part of Mexico and learning about Mexican festivals, societal issues and culture. Instead of just going to a restaurant, they have an experience. 

Whether your brand is a restaurant or a different type of business, you can use similar methods to create a marketing experience. The main formula for following Ingham’s lead is to take a major theme and create experiences that fit it. He found ways to spread and celebrate the food itself and to broaden the theme to include the Mexican culture that encompasses the food. Find unique and fun ways for your company to do the same. Your healthy food restaurant could create events promoting health and wellness. Your home decor company could create do-it-yourself tutorial events and events that center around color, pattern, texture and material. The idea is to broaden beyond the product or service. Think about the theme that encompasses it and work to create events that fit the theme.