Pro Walk at the US Open Sponsored by American Express a Big Hit

American Express is a rock-star at experiential marketing and if you want to see a great example, just check out their successful Fan Experience at the US Open in New York. Creative and unique interactive, and exciting experiences for their cardmembers and well-planned brand/product placement, offered their customers a fun filled day and reminded them that they were well taken care of by the company. The US Open American Express Fan Experience marketing event was a huge success in New York this year. Fans that attended got a once in a lifetime chance to be the tennis star they have always dreamed of being…and more! Fans were definitely reminded that “Membership Has Its Privileges” when they attended this experimental marketing venture.

The company’s fan experience was creative, engaging, and worked well with the “Open Like a Pro” theme of the brand’s goal for this year. The American Express Pro Walk actually gave lucky attendees the chance to enter and walk onto center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, just like a true tennis star.  This unique experience was a huge hit with fans and let them experience being in the limelight that is usually reserved for professional athletes.

The highlight of the 20,000-square-foot US Open American Express Fan Experience, Pro Walk, used a combination of huge tennis ball, holograms, a virtual reality feature, and other digital effects that put the fan eight smack dab into the life of a professional tennis player that started with a “Player Check-In” and took them through an emotional tour of behind the scenes fan experiences which let them walk in the footsteps of legends.

Fans were ushered through the “Locker Room” where they registered, swung a digital tennis racquet, and announced their name. From there, they entered a LED-lined tunnel loaded with graphics, surround-sound audio, and even listened while the paparazzi called their names. When it was their turn to shine, they stepped inside the dome where they saw a replica of center court, were greeted by the roar of the stadium crowd, and looked to the Jumbotrons to see themselves walking onto the court at the US Open! If that wasn’t enough, they were then handed a tennis racquet and the crowd went wild as their opponent failed to return the serve! And to top it off, fans received a video of their American Express Pro Walk experience to commemorate their day.

According to American Express VP of global sponsorships and experiential marketing, they got their inspiration for this year’s activities from their cardmembers. They look at their cardmembers as professional fans. They attend the US Open each year and know all about how to navigate the sporting event and exactly where they want to go. American Express wanted to help the fans experience the US Open like never before.

In addition to the wildly successful Pro Walk, there was also the American Express Card Member Club, which offered a variety of complimentary services, including athlete meet-and-greets, American Express radios with commentary of the games, match updates and American Express brand ambassadors to help members and answer questions.

The company’s fan experience was creative, engaging, and worked well with the “Open Like a Pro” theme of the brand’s goal for this year. The American Express Pro Walk actually gave lucky attendees the chance to enter and walk onto center court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, just like a true tennis star.  This unique experience was a huge hit with fans and let them experience being in the limelight that is usually reserved for professional athletes.

The highlight of the 20,000-square-foot US Open American Express Fan Experience, Pro Walk, used a combination of huge tennis ball, holograms, a virtual reality feature, and other digital effects that put the fan eight smack dab into the life of a professional tennis player that started with a “Player Check-In” and took them through an emotional tour of behind the scenes fan experiences which let them walk in the footsteps of legends.

Fans were ushered through the “Locker Room” where they registered, swung a digital tennis racquet, and announced their name. From there, they entered a LED-lined tunnel loaded with graphics, surround-sound audio, and even listened while the paparazzi called their names. When it was their turn to shine, they stepped inside the dome where they saw a replica of center court, were greeted by the roar of the stadium crowd, and looked to the Jumbotrons to see themselves walking onto the court at the US Open! If that wasn’t enough, they were then handed a tennis racquet and the crowd went wild as their opponent failed to return the serve! And to top it off, fans received a video of their American Express Pro Walk experience to commemorate their day.

According to American Express VP of global sponsorships and experiential marketing, they got their inspiration for this year’s activities from their cardmembers. They look at their cardmembers as professional fans. They attend the US Open each year and know all about how to navigate the sporting event and exactly where they want to go. American Express wanted to help the fans experience the US Open like never before.

In addition to the wildly successful Pro Walk, there was also the American Express Card Member Club, which offered a variety of complimentary services, including athlete meet-and-greets, American Express radios with commentary of the games, match updates and American Express brand ambassadors to help members and answer questions.

Toilet Paper Wall at New York Fashion Week

Even toilet-paper gets its kicks in fashion. This year, Cottonelle created a highly unique offshoot beauty lounge to spruce up New York Fashion Week and change up typically showcased brands. Both creative and memorable, the toilet-paper brand’s hosted lounge created a variety of excitement-packed options for event-goers.

Pampering in Style

The toilet-paper market is tough to market. It isn’t, however, exclusive to typical comfort commercials. Cottonelle’s approach, harnessing the triumvirate of promotional power—gifts, celebs and media—took Fashion Week by storm with a rather ornamental element.

Attendees were pampered, offered photo ops, gifted with Cottonelle gift bags and were given meetings with industry influencers. Taking place at SoHo’s Openhouse, Cottonelle’s beauty lounge created, yes, an entire wall out of toilet paper rolls. The rolls, designed and placed along the wall, created a photo booth backdrop to encourage hygiene-related poses.

The Method and the Meaning

Cottonelle’s toilet paper wall was created to boost its CleanRipple Texture toilet-paper—which is one of the brand’s own innovations. Designed to clean better, CleanRipple Texture toilet-paper definitely benefits from an “all hygiene, no nonsense” marketing effort.

Cottonelle’s approach worked, too. Senior associate brand manager, Jeremy DeWitt, considered the event to be a major success, setting Cottonelle apart from typically flat patterns, uninspired visitation booths and, of course, the brand’s leading competitors. The toilet-paper industry, itself, is difficult to compete in due to the product’s marketing monopoly on television time. That said, experiential approaches certainly exist—and Cottonelle has hit it right on the head.

More than a Showcase

Cottonelle’s display, in essence, was a consumer visual test for CleanRipple’s design. The product’s showcase, being out front and center, was a compelling feature reveal. While a highly forward approach to display marketing, the massive toilet-paper wall wasn’t necessarily off-putting. Here, the brand’s dedication to its beauty lounge takes the main stage. Its attention to consumer interaction—and not only detail—won its visitor population’s heart.

The Sponsors and Affiliates

Few experiential marketing efforts, today, are solo efforts. Cottonelle utilized its big-industry brand partners to breathe life into the event, backing a truly unique idea with truly resourceful entities. Corso Coffee, Pulsaderm, YouCam Makeup and Nonni’s Foods, all sponsors and partners, directly assisted the beauty lounge’s creation.

Integrating sponsors into experiential approaches can be difficult, but Cottonelle’s resounding support reveals quite a lot about its strategy. Primarily, it works. Secondarily, it displays an overarching inclination to try new things. Few marketing creators have the intensity, the openness and the creativity to display toilet paper on a wall, but Cottonelle’s display proves such a venture is, indeed, a successful one. The event’s success is likely attributed to its initially bizarre ideation, right alongside its solid approach to practical marketing.

Frisk Clean Breath Launches Brutally Honest Breath Meter

Not every experiential marketing event involves getting thousands of people together in one spot. The latest campaign from Frisk Clean Breath, a maker of breath mints, chose to go where people already are. It set up a machine in shopping malls and similar venues that promised to be "brutally honest" about people's breath. The machine was appropriately called Frisk, the Brutally Honest Breath Meter. Passers-by soon noticed the machines and breathed into the tube sticking out of the front. When they did, the machine responded with something extremely unexpected for a marketing campaign: Insults! Every response colorfully insulted the user's breath. It would light up words like "your breath is so bad that your toothbrush mistakes itself for a toilet brush." Then, it would dispense anywhere from a few to a huge amount of Clean Breath Mints. As it did this, it promised that the mints would keep the person's breath fresh for at least two hours.

The reactions of the people who got these analyses typically involved some sort of surprised exclamation. This got even more passers-by to stop and see what was going on. Soon, they too would blow into the machine and get their own brutally honest assessments. As this happened, Frisk recorded the reactions.

Once the company had enough reactions collected, it picked out the best ones. Then it made a TV commercial that has been called one of the best of the year. This ad showed what the machine said, how the people reacted to it, and how many mints it dispensed. In one case, it dispensed so many that it looked like the person had won a decent-sized slot machine jackpot – that was paid in mints!

Like other great experiential marketing campaigns, this one by Frisk is innovative, unexpected, and contains more than one phase. The first phase lets regular people directly experience the product in an unforgettable way. Then, the second phase shows the results in a way that makes viewers feel like they were almost a part of the original event. The combination is far more exciting than traditional advertising, which has become a bore due to overexposure. People remember experiential advertising in part because it is so different than the usual.

While this campaign didn't use a specific private venue, many do. If you're looking for a place to hold a big marketing extravaganza, look no further than Soho Studios in Miami. Soho has up to 70,000 square feet of space – enough room to fit a huge crowd under its roof. Contact us today to set up a reservation or learn how we can cater to your specific event.

The Mountain Dew Dance Party in Chicago

Moderne and Latin Works partnered to deliver Mountain Dew’s own brand of party to Chicago’s Cuban Festival, Taste of Mexico and Puerto Rican Festival. A summertime bash, the Mountain Dew party celebrated with lights, a flash tattoo station and on-the-spot snapshots to show brand support.

A Taste of Something Different

Mountain Dew’s appearance wasn’t at all unfounded, but it spiced up Chicago’s Hispanic events with a huge, multi-night bash. The Mountain Dew Party, premiering its all-Dew dance floor, presented lights, a Mountain DJ and a reason to remember its presence.

Taste of Mexico, the Chicago Cuban Festival and Puerto Rican Festival were prime locations for Mountain Dew’s presence. South-of-the-Border food-lovers, culinary masters and Chicago’s Little Village residents were all exposed to the event’s musical happening, and flavorful food was certainly not forgotten. Above all, Mountain Dew’s presentation aligned its all-fun strategy with some of Chicago’s best food. A taste of something different, Mountain Dew promised a fantastic pallet cleanser alongside each event’s much-sough-after food. Nearly a dozen Chicago restaurants presented all-time-favorite dishes, ranging across enchiladas, tacos, flautas, gorditas and tortas.

The Culinary Stage

Chicago’s wild events didn’t stop there, nor did Mountain Dew miss an opportunity to pair off with Chicago’s nightlife. Each event’s non-stop musical lineup, food workshops and daily cooking demonstrations took place on a big-time culinary stage. Top chefs, arts and crafts and even carnival rides were present, and the brand’s flexible approach to excitement, sports and hospitality was a welcomed guest.

Marketing Via Snapchat

Probably Mountain Dew’s most memorable addition was its snapcode-driven marketing event. Within the Mountain Dew dance, event-goers were given the chance to scan Mountain Dew snapcodes—signing them up for the brand’s own Snapchat channel. You’d be correct in guessing Mountain Dew’s strategy, here. Nightlife, action, food and music are all wonderful Snapchat opportunities, and event-goers didn’t miss a beat in hopping to the brand’s Snapchat channel.

Sent Snapchats were given event-exclusive geofilters, making Mountain Dew’s presence clear. Printing Snapchats, too, was an option—an option presented to immediate guests to support the event’s all-access environment.

Drink Variety and New Flavors

While dancing, Mountain Dew party-goers were also urged to try Mountain Dew’s bartending station. Its hosted variety of Dew drinks included eight flavors—including the brand’s much-loved Kickstart Orange Mango and Voltage flavors. Kickstart Orange Mango, in particular, has been deserving of the brand’s marketing love for some time. Chicago, ever-sought for its attribution to fine dining and drinking culture, couldn’t have served as a better platform for it. Where get-out-and-go marketing efforts are considered, Mountain Dew dominates in selecting prime advertisement real estate. Many event-goers sampled, promoted and became lifetime lovers of the Dew—making this event a win-win at every angle.

Reese's Creates Spooning Event

Hershey’s has given their chocolate lovers a gift in the form of Reese Spreads. Creating a marketing campaign that will draw the masses, Reese’s launched the “Do you spoon?” initiative, with a talking vending machine that invited people to use an oversized spoon to try the new spreads. Given a royalty theme, the spoon was gold, with miniature spoons given out via assistants on roller blades. Included in that campaign is out-of-home advertising in three major markets, with a huge push during the back-to-school period, accompanied by television ads. This type event helps build the brand for Reese’s, in an effort to contend with the current leader in the market, the Nutella brand.

Complete with small stations full of dipping materials like fruit, pretzels and breads, customers will be able to taste and enjoy the different ways these spreads can be used. As part of the ever-expanding Reese’s portfolio, this is a welcome addition to the family.

This type of event helps experiential marketing specialists create events that are meaningful and impactful, focusing on solidifying brand identity and incorporating customer input to grow a loyal fan base. We host a number of events of this nature, creating fun and unique platforms for customers interested in an immersive experience.

Soho Studios has the ability to work with in-house teams to solicit sponsors for the events, performers and other incentives, including VIP areas and reality-based areas. In the case of Reese Spreads, their campaign is geared toward increasing basket size. These social activities add leverage and visibility, taking into account the opportunities to increase market share.The Miami area is known for hosting these types of venues year-round, with every event customized for the customer and occasion. Soho Studios has a number of spaces to accommodate both large and small crowds, with an adjacent outdoor area. Catering to customers who enjoy chocolate spreads, this is a great way to attract attention in a fun and engaging way.

Hershey has been around since 1894, engaging customers with their variety of chocolates and other snacks. With this live event and others designed to enhance engagement, marketing firms can use venues like Soho Studios to bring concepts to life in tight timelines for both large and small corporations. Using venues that have a number of floor plans and are designed to create experiential events in customized event spaces is smart and cost-effective. Reese’s embraced the moment and created a special demand.

Mike’s Hard Lemonade Goes for a Guinness World Record

When Mike's Hard Lemonade decided that it needed to catch people's attention, it knew that boring TV ads and newspaper coupons weren't going to cut it. It would need to do something noticeable – and do it in a way that made people care that it had done so. That's why they decided to create an experiential marketing campaign like none other before. How did they do it?...

The first thing they kept in mind was the desired brand image. Mike's Hard Lemonade is an alcoholic brand, but it's beverages are quite different from standard beers and other alternatives. This naturally leads to positioning the brand as new, young, and different. Now, they just needed to think of how to draw a large audience and make sure that the Mike's name stayed with them.

They decided that the best way to do this would be to break a fun world record. The Guinness Book record for: "Most Candles on a Cake," was chosen as the target. Next, they needed to get people interested enough to not only spread the message, but directly partake in the history-making event.

Social Media

Social media fans have become immune to most companies' endless requests for likes and retweets. Mike's Hard Lemonade needed a way to get them to truly want to like their page. They hit on tying the number of likes to the number of candles on the cake, with each like resulting in the addition of a candle. The result? The cake ended up with 51,151 candles crammed across its entire top surface.

The Movie

The idea of putting 51,151 candles on a cake naturally leaves people with plenty of questions. How will they fit? Will they be lit? If so, how? They decided to answer them with an exciting short film that uses exciting camera angles and zooms to capture all of the critical points.

For those who watch the movie, the answer to the first question comes fast. The candles all fit because the cake is huge. Then, people are drawn further into the experience as they get to see that the candles are indeed lit – with torches! After more exciting key scenes, the finale makes every viewer cheer: The Guinness judge proclaims the record beaten!

Crafting experiential marketing campaigns that work as well as this one requires skill, experience, and plenty of creativity and verve. Contact us the next time you want to make sure that your brand stands out, not just for the presence of its advertising, but for its ability to get people to care about it.

Remember that experiential marketing doesn't just take place online and in movies. The people who partake in person need an unforgettable place to participate. Call us to reserve our venue, SoHo Studios, to make sure that everyone loves being a part of your event!

How M&M's Got Innovative to Celebrate Their 75th Anniversary

While the real estate industry is known to employ some innovative tactics for promotional marketing, this time there was a reversal of roles when the Mars candy company used real estate to create a captivating event to celebrate the 75th anniversary of M&M's. This past March, Mars hosted the event at New York City's Altman building. The theme centered around the characters that have become the candy's mascot. Though not quite as old as the candy itself, which hit the market in 1941, anthropomorphic, talking M&M's first appeared in advertisements in 1954. But these were black and white, and only came in two varieties, peanut and plain. The colorful "spokescandies" that we know today came into being at the same time as blue M&M's, in 1995. And they proved so popular that they continue as powerful marketing icons to this day. For the March 3rd event, the company created "apartments" to go with each M&M's character's specific personality. Yellow's child-like personality was showcased with a yellow-ball filled fun pit and GIF booth where attendees could make their own. Green's flirty side was captured in a makeup vanity complete with green lipstick. Blue's apartment was a suave bachelor pad. And brainy Brown's apartment perfectly summed up her classy intellectual personality, with an office and her trademark glasses left on the desk. These weren't just surface assessments of their mascots though. To properly celebrate the 75th anniversary, Mars dug deep into the history and lore of M&M's and their marketing campaigns of the past. A Statue of Liberty model in Green's room alluded to the time she floated down the Hudson dressed as Lady Liberty for a 2007 promotion. Red's room had a vintage poster that made reference to the reason why M&M's were originally created as MREs for WWII soldiers. And Brown's apartment had a script based on the often told legend that Van Halen's concert rider includes a clause forbidding brown M&M's from the dressing room.

To make this a truly red carpet worthy event, Mars did more than just roll out the red carpet (although roll out the red carpet they did). There were candy shop dispensers of M&M's in all sorts of unseen colors, inviting guests to vote on new ones and also take some home. There were passed hors d'oeuvres and mini grilled cheeses served with shots of tomato soup. There was also a full bar, featuring cocktails based on each M&M. Additionally there were multiple interactive components, including stations set up throughout the event, with headphones and tablets, allowing participants to engage in an augmented reality experience, as well as allow them to shuffle M&M's to create their own rendition of Sammy Davis Jr.'s iconic "The Candy Man." This song served as the theme for the evening, as the original Sammy Davis Jr. song was used in vintage M&M ads, and the event's grand finale was a live remake of the song by Zedd and Aloe Blacc, titled "Candyman," which has already gotten 10 million hits online. Although this was a massive event, it's just kicking off the anniversary celebrations, as Mars plans to repackage aspects of the event on a smaller scale to serve up at different locations across the country, as well as developing a virtual reality version.

Samsung Creates Digital Playground

It's obvious that something is very different the moment you walk into Samsung 837 in Manhattan. From the outside, this location looks much like any other big-city electronics store, and even its "837" name is just a reference to its address. However, once you go in, you can see that it isn't really a store at all. You have just entered the company's "digital playground," where you aren't meant to buy things, but instead, check out all of the latest offerings. In effect, it is a giant, interactive, 3D advertisement. Customers who check out this showroom won't be thinking of advertising as they indulge their desire to play with all of the electronics that are out and waiting for their attention. A giant screen, made up of 96 other screens, grabs that attention like a hook. When there are no events or shows taking place, visitors get to use it to display selfies. What makes these selfies unique is that each image is made up of the selfies of previous visitors, all automatically arranged to produce the picture like a big mosaic.

Visitors also get to experience their social media identities in a way never before seen. After entering account information into an interface, a special room full of screens shows a huge array of posts while a voice reads out hashtag information. This room has a tunnel-like construction, and screens are everywhere – including underfoot. Once the visual display is over, the screens turn into mirrors, bringing the maximum impact to the visitor's experience.

Many other displays are there, and some of the other floors have a different look and feel in order to better simulate the situations in which the products are used. All of these exhibits help immerse the visitor into Samsung's own electronic world and imagine more possibilities for the company's products. All around, staff explain how to use the exhibits, describe products, and keep everyone oriented. Samsung has also made the location's one-on-one customer care center available online. This completes the experience for visitors who decide to get more information later on.

Yet, despite all of this effort, none of the products are for sale at that particular location. Instead, the purpose of Samsung 837 is to let people directly interact with Samsung products, see the many awe-inspiring ways they can be used, and help visitors decide which ones to get after they leave the Electronic Playground.

This is just one example of how a venue can be set up to change a set of displays from mere advertising into full-immersion experiential marketing. For more ideas, and for the perfect venue for your short-term marketing event, just contact us. Our SoHo Studios venue can handle all of the creativity you can put into your show.

Absolut and Deadmau5 Create a Virtual Reality Game

Over the past two years, Absolut Vodka has been using their Absolut Nights marketing campaign to reestablish themselves as the trendsetter for night life. Based primarily around videos that range from 30 seconds to a minute, they show a diverse range of people having different interpretations of similarly wonderful nights, involving dancing, fireworks and watching the sunrise with friends or a special someone, and of course a cocktail made with Absolut. The campaign has garnered great success for the brand, including an increase in sales of 5.8%. They've also expanded from the more traditional videos (albeit ones with a heavy social media presence and strong use of hash-tagging) onto more innovative platforms and mediums, including the app, Hoppr, for finding the best events in nightlife. Now, Absolut is not just positioning themselves to be an industry leader in nightlife, but in teaming up with electronic music producer, Deadmau5, to create a virtual reality game for mobile devices as well as a limited edition headset, they're opening new and exciting avenues for branding. The collaboration is a great way of combining gaming and music with today's hottest technology. Deadmau5, a well-known gaming enthusiast, is also known for having fans who seek out the most cutting edge technology. Both gaming and music are ideal areas to explore through the immersive medium of virtual reality, and in what is truly 21st century marketing, the campaign pairs perfectly with a live event: on the day the game is released, July 27, Deadmau5 will be performing a live event in NYC.

The VR of the game operates in the same way as Google Cardboard, but Absolut and Deadmau5 have created their own special edition branded players, on sale now for $18 (which is only $3 more than the least expensive Google Cardboard player). Plus, the app will work with other headsets, and other apps will work with the special edition headset. The goal was not to monetize the game or the headsets, but to create a truly unique experience for old and new fans alike of both the vodka brand and Deadmau5. The game combines real footage from Deadmau5's concerts, exclusive songs as well as mini-games of running and driving.

The collaboration, the game, the music and the live event all work together beautifully to perfectly convey Absolut's brand message of having an unforgettable night. This newest addition to the Absolut Nights campaign also demonstrates how many ways there are to expand beyond physical events in addition to the regular use of social media and a digital presence.

As we continue into the 21st century, we look forward to helping our clients explore the many ways that they can use events to create powerful branding opportunities that extend far beyond four walls.  Contact us to help you get started.