Duke of Digital
Duke of Digital
012 - How Experiential Marketing Can Grow Your Business with Peter Abraham
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Experiential marketing can create lasting impressions and brand loyalty. In this episode, Peter Abraham, founder of Abraham Studio, shares tips on how brands can use experiential marketing to create value for their customers.
Peter Abraham
http://abrhm.com/
http://freestylestudios.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterabraham2/
https://twitter.com/PeterAbraham
https://medium.com/@peterabraham
Brian Meert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
Duke of Digital
https://www.dukeofdigital.com/
https://www.instagram.com/dukeofdigital/
AdvertiseMint
https://www.advertisemint.com
https://business.facebook.com/advertisemint/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/advertisemint/
https://www.instagram.com/advertisemint
Experiential marketing can create lasting impressions and brand loyalty. Raise your pinkies because today we're gonna show you how experiential marketing can grow your business.
Speaker 2Presented by AdvertiseMint. The Duke of digital will guide you through the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing, social media, and how to grow your business online. To submit a question for the show, text (323) 821-2044 or visit Duke of digital.com if you need an expert to fix your ads, the friendly team at AdvertiseMint is ready to help. Visit AdvertiseMint. That's M I N t.com or call (844) 236-4686 to grow your business.
Speaker 3to grow your business. Here is your host Brian Meert .
Speaker 4All right I'm super excited today because we have with us today on the podcast Peter Abraham founder of Abraham studio . It is great to have you here Peter. Thanks Brian . Great to be here. Good to see you . I know. I'm really excited because you have a tremendous background experience all marketing .
Speaker 1You've worked with Lululemon Nike the Los Angeles Marathon. You even did a TED talk on the power of shared physical experience . Like so this is something that is in your DNA at this point in time. Welcome to the show . Did I miss anything.
Speaker 5Tell me a little bit more now that that's it. You know I started after college really with an obsession about storytelling and filmmaking so I made television commercials for 10 or 15 years then kind of morphed into marketing and I created my own running event . And that is what really turned me on to experience and marketing that was acquired by the L.A. Marathon . And that was about 12 years ago and since then I've worked with all kinds of different brands with an experience of marketing and all kinds of marketing honestly and really trying to unify. So it's not just experiential on an island . So it's tied to digital and what and the product and what the brand stands for overall.
Speaker 1Now just to make sure we get this out the way before we begin how do people find you and be able to contact you if they want to work with you after hearing this .
Speaker 6So several ways they can reach me . My Web site is a PR h m dot com . I'm at Peter Abraham on Twitter and I'm linked in. You know at Peter Abraham .
Speaker 1Nice nice. OK. So before we begin I want to run through a couple of. Is this true . I search the internet for you . Before we started and I found a couple of rumors you tell me if these are true . The first one . Is it true you a stand in for George Michael on his famous faith music video.
Speaker 5I was in fact so you know right out of college I mentioned I worked as a production assistant and then a producer in music videos and television commercials and when I was a P.A. my friend my roommate Tim and I we had a little apartment in Venice is right after we graduated from UCLA . We would work on these music videos and we'd make like maybe seventy five dollars a day to work like 16 hours getting coffee for producers . I mean complete go for unloading the truck in on George Michael's video. I spent some time as a P.A. and as a stand in . And I remember him we would wear his those mirrored glasses you know against that white background . And my friend Tim was standing in also for him and George as he walks in to like take the glasses and get in for the actual shot . He picks up the glasses from Tim he goes oh god like they're dirty somebody else wore them you know and he was really a piece of work . Anyway rest in peace . But that was classic. So it is true . I love it. It is true and I also in those in that era I worked as a practice assistant on one of Prince's films sign of the times and I flew to New York as a 23 year old with the first release print of the film like these are cans of 35 million film like 20 pounds each and went to the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan like a fifteen hundred seat one screen theater. And it was Prince and I . That's it. Nobody else in a fifteen hundred seat theater sitting side by side watching the first print of the film and he hated all the sound mixing and I kept having to run all the way up to the projection projection booth and back and he'd say No I don't like the Dolby is all wrong .
Speaker 7And I'd run all the way back up can you flip the switch and draw it in Ronda posed that . No I hate it I sound awful. And anyway the whole two hours of running up and down like that it was amazing.
Speaker 8I was so excited .
Speaker 1OK next to rumor. Is it true or not. Like are were offices that were located in the heart of Hollywood a block from where the Academy Awards are filmed a lot of movie premieres Jimmy Kimmel Live. Is it true that you have filmed a motorcycle riding on top of our office building here.
Speaker 5Yes. So the last time I was in this building was 23 years ago and I had just started a production company with a friend of mine to make action sports films. We had right out of the gate sponsorship from Mike Oakley and Reebok to make a motocross film and my partner the director wanted to shoot a whole urban thing with a motorcycle in the middle of the city is like would it be great if we end up on the top of like a skyscraper looking over the edge on a motorcycle .
Speaker 8And I had a friend in commercial real estate who knew the owner of this building and the owner said Oh yeah just that's fine they could do whatever they want. We brought a motocross bike up to the roof in the freight elevator and built a ramp and he wrote it right up to the edge and looked over with what was then a helmet cam pre GoPro . It was so dangerous and I can't believe we even did that . Now I would never think about that without permits and safety gear. We just bootlegged it and you know it's still on youtube if you look up full power trip movie .
Speaker 4I mean 11 story building and it's pretty high . Yeah I just mean I've even been to the roof . Yeah I feel like I get in trouble if I bring in like an office chair from the parking garage door . Yeah . What are you doing now. Like mad. Yeah. Now I know I can bring in a motorcycle . Yeah it's been done before.
Speaker 6That was the days of like MTV punks if you remember that kind of stuff and everything we did was just bootlegged and crazy and no permits and borderline dangerous . And so I'm glad we emerged with no serious injuries.
Speaker 1I love it . I love it. OK so last question Is it true Have you climbed Mount McKinley which I think is called Denali.
Speaker 5Yeah. All right I did . I did around that same time in the late 90s my friends Jim and Kurt and I we were climbing a lot all around the western United States . We're really into mountain climbing and rock climbing . So we went up to climb Mount McKinley in Alaska . The three of us together and that's a whole undertaking I mean we got dropped off on the glacier with twenty nine days worth of food . They fly you in from Torquay now you got to wait at the airport for like three days till they have a break in the weather and then they fly you into about 8000 feet and you've got 100 pounds of stuff so 50 in the sled 50 on your back .
Speaker 8And how long is it from like start to fit. It's not like a hike in a day or two days. No I mean you could probably do it in a week except you got to acclimatize to altitude as it's 20000 feet so maybe that makes it like two weeks and then you've got to allow for weather because you could get up to 17000 feet like ready to go the next day and a massive storm comes in with a hundred mile an hour winds and you're pinned like going anywhere you're not going anywhere for maybe a week . And we kept kind of racing the weather because it looked like it was going to get bad and we made it in 12 days up and down and it was an amazing experience . I'm so glad I did that . It's like a once in a lifetime .
Speaker 1So that's it's over 20000 feet yeah. All right. So I mean the highest I've ever done is Mount Whitney which is 40000 Yeah. I mean we live at sea level so I mean when I did I felt like I was gonna die like my I'm like I can't breathe . But you generally do that and you know one to two days right .
Speaker 8It's it's you know I don't do so well at altitude like I just drive to Mammoth and I get a headache the next day . So it you know I was fine up till about 17000 feet and then you know I remember waking up like on our summit day and I felt like the worst hangover I'd ever had in my life the headache and the . And I remember laying there kind of on the fence I got should I even go or not . And I my two friends were like hey when the weather's good you got to be ready to go .
Speaker 1I'm like That's it I'm doing it give me my boots and we and we went for it yeah it's just crazy to think I mean like Mount Whitney is half of Mount Everest and you know Denali or McKinley is you know two thirds of Mount Everest if you like when you get up there you like me and I'm feeling miserable . You're only 60 percent away correct.
Speaker 8I can't imagine being twenty nine thousand feet with no with no oxygen and there's you know a dozen people or so I've done that I can't even imagine .
Speaker 1It just blows my mind. OK . So I wanted to get into the topic of today which is experience show marketing and how people can use it to grow their business . I know it's something that a lot of major brands do . They generally have budgets for it and I want to kind of run through this topic so that listeners have an understanding of what it is how it can work for them and what options they have to be able to do it with their own business. So you'll walk us through what is experiential marketing. Can you give us kind of a high level overview of what it is and how it works .
Speaker 5Well the way I think of experiential marketing is really just a real life in real life engagement. It could be a live event. It could be a trade show booth . It could be a community meet up somewhere it's just like with real people live together .
Speaker 9And I think now in the age of you know digital is so prevalent it's everywhere in our lives all the time it's in our pocket on our phone a lot of people actually as we know feel isolated because of digital there's celebrity sort of like has retreated to their phones or their computers . I think because of that in real life things experiential is more important than ever because it gives us a way to connect . We're all still humans we all still want human contact and so the more pervasive digital gets I think the more important experiential is . It doesn't mean to the exclusion of digital but I think it's a really important component not only for brands but in life. Yeah . Yeah. What.
Speaker 10It's so true I think you know as as things are changing with the digital and people rich and so they retreat but they're just they're acclimatized to their phone on that when there is something that gets them where they can connect on a human experience one to one with other people I think get the value to people goes up exponentially when they're like I can have those real world experiences or you know almost on a flip side they can share those experiences on social media that other people don't have the ability to talk about because it so kind of exclusive or limited time . Which kind of brings me to my next question . You know what are some of the core components that lead up to experience or marketing success like if you think about the best ones that you worked on what were the ingredients that they had to make them so successful.
Speaker 6Well that's a great question and the most important thing is to have an actual strategy and like understand what your brand stands for . So that anything you do whether it's experiential or Instagram or anything or retail kind of feels like it's coming from the same place. And so I I believe every brand needs to have a point of view rather than try and be everything . All things to all people. So let me give you an example . I was hired once to be kind of part of a strategy group that would help to create some experiential marketing for Taco Bell . And you know we we had all kinds of Meet me there are eight of us in the room very experienced people from different kind of experiences and points of view that were really interesting smart people . But the problem is is what it was like a blue sky assignment like this huge whiteboard and what is what's Taco Bell's point of view . What is Taco Bell stand for making cheap food . I guess I didn't really have they don't have a hook or a purpose and so are our brainstorming was just all over the map.
Speaker 8I know we're going to we're going to do something on college campuses no no no let's do something at a music festival . No no no no . I know let's do a sports day. And it was like .
Speaker 6And we really in four hours we got nowhere and we came up with no good ideas. And so if you can imagine you know I've also done some work on Red Bull . Red Bull is very like they're really focused on like action sports . They do live events you know and they amplify them with good content . It's way easier to idea eight for Red Bull because you kind of know what the Red Bull point of view is and their angle and they've got a thing you can you can get into a box on your strategy and like OK let's focus on this. And so the first thing is for brands have a point of view . I love it.
Speaker 1How important are things like you know making the event unique or creative . Does it have to . I mean I think generally one of the core components of I've experienced market would be that involves people that there's that human touch or that human element and is there any importance to like it being limited like a limited time or a scarcity factor because a lot of times you know when these events happen they're in a physical place where there's people that may be around but it can't necessarily impact the entire world right .
Speaker 10It impacts the people who are there at that moment in time yes.
Speaker 6So I I believe you know I like to start from the right place of how can we be helpful for people and help them solve a problem whatever that is. So like it could be social. So for instance like you look at Red Bull . Red Bull is being helpful by providing great entertainment whether they come in and sponsors sponsor the live broadcast of a music festival or you know the Red Bull Rampage bicycle event. It's entertaining that solves a problem for people . They want great entertainment . It might be super informational like you think of you know you going out and speaking at events . That's a kind of experiment spirit Angel live market. You're being helpful to people. And so I like I like to come from the place of how can we make somebodies day or week better. There are many ways to do that and what's the on brand way to do that . Red Bulls way is different from your way but the point is you're being helpful in some fashion.
Speaker 1Yeah you know it's interesting because you know I here in Hollywood try drive you know to work every day and you know there's a lot of studios right . So they're always doing what they view as big experiential marketing. I remember when it came out you know they built the exact same replica of a house in a parking lot like three blocks from here and I'm not a fan of scary movies at all . But every time I go buys like all that yeah.
Speaker 10And there would be a line of people there like we want to walk through it and they were able to generate you know something that was meaningful where people can be a part of the movie you're in the movie I remember when the most recent Godzilla came out they took the Cinerama Dome and they made it look like Godzilla was coming out of the top of it like he was breaking through . And then they shy or took a huge spotlight and shown it up their shoe shined it shown it and shot it up through his mouth . So it looked like he was shooting a big beam into the sky and it was just I mean that would be more of necessarily a stunt . Whereas the first one the house that's where you could walk through and experience it the Godzilla one was more of just a creative billboard more of like a stunt it's there for a limited period of time . You know what's the difference between those you know between creating an experience or marking event and a stunt.
Speaker 6I again I kind of a favor more of an experiential marketing event in the way you've described it than a stunt . I think a stunt is a one off and doesn't necessarily have lasting value and it's not necessarily helpful to people. I think there are stunts that have succeeded. You remember the Ice Bucket Challenge sure that raised like 100 million for a class but that was great . Awesome . But I'll bet you the next year they raised like 500. They were back down to five hundred thousand because it didn't have lasting value necessarily. And so again I I prefer you know generally something that creates in person stuff. Now I will say there are certain stunts that are so good and so entertaining so if you think of Red Bull the guy that jumped out of the the Felix. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Baumgartner who is like at eighty thousand feet in on the edge of space and jumped out with a parachute and had like eight million live streams. That was a stunt but that was so good and so captivating . I think that it became like it was almost like a Super Bowl or a shared live event.
Speaker 10You know it's so fascinating to think about that because there I do think one of the core components of that of exponential marketing is the ability to bring people into it and even like the Ice Bucket Challenge is a great example because even though it was something that over time people had the ability to get involved with that . Yeah. So I do actually like that and that was actually an online kind of a hybrid . Yeah where anyone could be a part of it wherever they were at right handed Earth . Yeah as opposed to generally experience or marketing is something that would be you know a core event. Yeah I know with with ticktock you we've talked about that on the show a couple of times . A lot of times people have the ability to engage with challenges or you know music songs or things like that where they can kind of go back in. I mean is is that is it . I mean because part of that you talked about the Felix example . I mean he was up in space. I mean this is a big deal . I mean I feel like when that happened I mean it was number one on all the news channels as it ever was. But I mean it's something that can't be replicated right. I mean it's it's something that doesn't happen every day . You know and that kind of leads me into the next question which is budgets right. Like if you're a brand if you're a marketing person and you're wanting to step into this I don't know what the final bill was on you know the Red Bull doing that . But there's no way that it was inexpensive . It was something they had to put and there was there had to be a strategy. Huge teams . Everything that went into that the outcome was fantastic . You know it. Do they know you know it's not it's guaranteed that it's gonna be great when they launch it .
Speaker 6You know and I mean let's let's. Red Bull is trying hundreds of things all around the world all year in the hopes that one thing that year or two things turn into like a feel like thing . They're experimented massively all the time so you can't it's not like that was the one thing they did they did a hundred things and one of them blew up and you can't just shortcut to the one thing that works. I mean you know like comparison with Nike would be they had eluded captured gay try and break two hours in the marathon which he did more recently you know with sponsored by initials but Nike did the first one breaking two . That was a very pretty interesting thing to watch . Pretty captivating and that was absolutely a Nike kind of marketing stunt . But and in real life thing .
Speaker 10And so anyway I mean why should brands expect you know in terms of the marketing mix and where are their advertising . You know what they've got four budgets . You know what would you say would be the expectation for what should be going into experience or marketing. I mean you talk about brands like Red Bull . It feels like they're going extremely heavy into create experiences and moments and things that are entertaining that people can watch or be a part of that they've never seen before . And I love the Red Bull stuff it's amazing how much of their videos I've watched and I feel like every time I turn around there's ten new ones that I didn't know ever existed before .
Speaker 6Right. I mean you know Red Bull has gone all in on that strategy for decades . All right . Have you ever seen a Red Bull ad . They've done a couple little animated things but basically there's no traditional advertising zero none. They have athletes and all these live events going on . That's pretty much it . And they've done that for decades and they've built an expertise . You could even say that Red Bull is a media company with a drink brand attached . You know they have the Red Bull Media House that runs a lot of that . So they've they've gotten really good at that. I think there's no one secret formula for a brand like hey 30 percent of your marketing budget should go into experiential. You can't really say that . And a brands needs change from when it's a startup when they have no budget for anything to when they get to medium size they get large . There are different objectives they're trying to achieve . I believe you know the best marketing as you know is about creating a 360 degree marketing experience like you kind of have to have it all going on starting with the product like if your product isn't good none of the great marketing matters. Let's be honest and that that comes from a guy who you know I spent like 15 years making television commercials for like I mean trying to sell burgers to teenagers . I mean I worked on everything including some really bad products and in the old days you could do a really slick ad campaign for something when there was only television like Little Caesar's pizza I used to work a lot on and it would sell these visa . Yeah exactly . It would sell crazy amounts of product those days are gone the Internet has created amount of an amount of transparency . We're like Amazon reviews are way more important than any ad could be for some products. And so I think you've got to have the full 360 starting with the product . And I think you got to look at every area of your marketing and you got to scale that . So even you know when I advise small startups with two or three people like you know what's your database setup what's your Facebook ad. Do you have a Facebook ad strategy . Google search . Is there a live event thing. Can you create content that brings value to people. Do you have a blog. Has your Web site look all those things I think have to work together and it's very difficult as a person who kind of runs marketing campaigns all the time . I think I myself almost like a conductor of an orchestra and you have all these things Whoa whoa the horns are too loud slow it down you know you got a really kind of get it all to work together and I don't think there's a formula but I think as it relates to experiential it the digital experiential combo when executed properly is very powerful. Here's an example I worked on an Air B and B project a few years ago where we were going to create a whole kind of stunt around Oscars and put some people in a house that looked like a dress like a movie and I was like Wait hold on here let's just think about this before we do this . How how is this going to get because we've got one couple that's going to spend one night in a house that looks like a movie. How are we gonna get that out. Nobody really had an answer I'm like you guys let's let's we we it's you're not gonna get a lot of Instagram ing from two people . So we better have a video crew documenting it . We'd better have that on Facebook and YouTube do we have a media spend for that where's the media department . Let's talk to them about that. So we had to like really make sure we had amplification for the whole thing. The thing ended up kind of going away before it started . But the point is if certain things like if a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees it. It really happens. You've got to amplify it.
Speaker 1It's so true. I've seen a lot of I mean I guess I've worked in entertainment for a while and I've been in the process of . We have the greatest idea ever where you do this and this and you know all these steps they see it be executed big budgets are spent and there are times that I'll see the end result and I'm like . And there was like 50 people there right . That's horrible. And at that point you know usually it's on to the next thing and you know people weren't necessarily watching it but I'm like oh my gosh this is horrible. And so I think that that is one element that you always want to make sure you have the ability to amplify it on the end. Let me go back pretty quick back to budgets. How do you know as marking professionals or business owners out there how do you quantify the return on investment the R or y you know what you're spending money into doing these things. I know you in the ad business . We get a lot of dollars and sounds like that's it . Like let's look at the numbers and go through it . What's the R Y on the ads bad and there's for sure there's other benefits that come into play but a lot of times because the tracking metrics are so good.
Speaker 10Like if I give you know you get ten thousand and you get ten thousand Oh look at that here's the winner within three days we know who is really doing better for our company which isn't true at all in terms of experiential marketing . And I feel like a lot of times it's a way at least for me the ones that I've gone to or experienced I'm like I feel like they're my friend . Like Red Bull . I'm like out watch your stuff . If there is a new Red Bull video it pops up . They have done this for many many years through all my men . I find their content interesting and unique and like me I've never seen someone do this before . Hang Gliding through cliffs or you're doing different you know Cliff diving events like things that I don't know anything about but I'm like I'd watch this . Like this is crazy . So how do you be able to measure the actual results from an event .
Speaker 6It's really difficult and there is no obvious metric . I think the digital world has you know one I think problem with digital and honestly a lot of the kind of advertising you work on as effective as it is in a lot of ways . It's kind of moved us into this kind of transactional space where like Wait what's the art why what are the clip. What's the click through rate like you need like numbers and data to back up your marketing . And there is a place for that for sure but when it comes to a lot of different more kind of brand marketing there aren't obvious numbers like like red bulls like guy jumping out of the spaceship 8 million views . What was the ARO eye on that and that cost him millions and millions of dollars. Did that sell cans of Red . But who knows right. And that you can't measure that and I think one of the most important things you just said is like Hey Red Bull has earned my trust because they put out consistently good events and content all the time and they have for years so I trust them . And so just you can't measure things like trust in like you when you're like Yeah . This of these guys are my friends because I like what they're doing . It's hard to measure that but that is a super important thing and I and I think you have to look at these things kind of more like year to year and not week to week campaign to campaign you can't measure it . But there is no substitute for earning trust and doing the right thing for your customers and being helpful and bringing value to your customers . And that is just that that's playing the long game . And now you know I've worked for so many brands and in a lot of brands everything is managed day to day week to week and it's really hard to play the long game and build trust over time . And a lot of brands just won't commit the resources and effort to like no we're just going to put out great content for our fans and we're going to build relationships with them and in the long run that'll serve us . And I wish more brands would do that.
Speaker 10It's crazy because we're now approaching . We may be bad past thousands of companies that we've worked with and I would say of the ones that we've worked with the ones that are the most successful generally have a fantastic product and they're passionate about having the best product and then number two they are passionate about connecting with their customers and finding ways to provide value and anything if there's a problem boom we're going to fix it right now and we need to make it right and that needs to be restructured where there's it surprises me how many other businesses are like it doesn't matter . We made our money money first . Customers come second and just it's hard because I guess I see it across so many different businesses that when I don't even know if I can quantify it because there's no different reports and everything but I just see it as a general rule of thumb happen again and again which is the people that the companies that care about people and put people first in what they're doing surprisingly do very very well with their marketing and get the results that they want to out of there. They're paid ads .
Speaker 6I totally agree with that and I think you're making a great point. There's no substitute for taking the customer point of view always and advocating for customers and having their back and you know how complicated it is . In this era that you know you have things like I don't know vaping products that have become really you know they're dangerous and people want they've got to trust you and you have to earn that trust. And so when I work with brands large and small I always like turn it around take the customer point of view like any campaign or product feature we're working on it's always like Wait how is that better for the customer . Yeah. And I think if you take that point of view it's not always the easy point of view because sometimes it's more work it's more money but I think when you're on the side of the customer ultimately they're going to trust you and they're going to love you.
Speaker 10It's so true what you know when it comes to doing the events a lot of times they have limited space you know it's in a local area meaning if it's in times square you know that only the people in Times Square can see and access it. What are your strategies for taking something and amplifying it which is generally what I see. I think a lot of the experience all marketing is I usually see in the after videos you know in the marketing world I see them show up or you know and reports or kind of write ups on cool things that other people are doing . You know why . How does that come into play in when you're setting up an event to also have the film crew. The video and the promotion of the video . Hi. You know what your kind of strategy for putting those into place.
Speaker 6Well I think there are so many tools at our disposal that are not that expensive to amplify an event let's say so. And I think it starts with first of all are you creating a good event that people want to share with their friends even if it's for five people. Are they going to want to tell their friends about the event and your product or whatever you are doing . Number two are you giving them ways to share on their own you know different kinds of geo fencing you know social links photographic moments I mean one thing that I see you know I worked for many years in the running business and at one thing I saw events consistently missing on where people would come to do a marathon whether it's New York L.A. or a smaller running event give and they want to commemorate that with a photo like everybody wants to post that to their you know Instagram or Facebook everybody in events would not set up like just the most basic little photo op for them for God sakes like you could build that for a couple hundred dollars put a little podium and a sign something and so you got to give people a way to share what they're doing . And then third like you know when you braying like let's say a video crew a social media person on your behalf who's just dedicated they're just posting to social updating your Web site whatever on the day and then use all that you know YouTube is like. I mean it's just you know it's such a resource that so many brands are just not using and it's not that hard to bring skilled video crew who can tell stories and make a video and edit it quickly and get it up fast like these things are not that complicated bring a great photographer get those things uploaded to you know Instagram tag people you know work with all your brand partners like you if you're like let's say a running event we'd have all different brands or we have meetings upfront with Lululemon and Gatorade and whoever like OK what's our social point of view what are we going to be sharing . Who's who's got the photos like just get everybody aligned around it and do some planning so that then you can you know expand.
Speaker 1I remember back in MBA school when they were going through that marketing and advertising book so they would talk about with them which is an acronym for what's in it for me right. And this was a long time ago and I'm like Man that is probably one of the biggest elements that comes into play now because in any experience what people want to do is share what it means to it not only they want it to mean something to them but now they want to share what it means to them so that things like when you talk about like get the running events where you've got a photo op or cool props or things that you can take photos with and share with other people . A lot of times the lines for those are way more than the lines for check in or food or anywhere else like people want to take those photos and wait in line for a long time.
Speaker 6Yeah I took my daughter to the Austin City Limits Music Festival if you're gonna go in Austin Texas and they had just this simple like cool big photo frame like it looks like a frame from a painting kind of ornate antique but like 10 feet tall got and you could stand in the middle of it and get a photo overlooking the whole venue . Literally it was a half an hour wait in line this very orderly line . You could you could stand right next to it and take a photo in five seconds but no people were waiting 30 minutes to get a photo on this thing and that really had an impact on me . And you know I think of all this kind of stuff we're talking about from a brand point of view as story doing versus storytelling like do cool things and then amplify it in one place I see it a lot lately is in direct to consumer businesses . I've spent a lot of time working with direct consumer brands like from Lululemon to Kenyan bikes . Right now I'm doing a lot of work with and the brands that have really gone full on into creating their own brick and mortar retail . Like if you look at Warby Parker Warby Parker has almost hundred and twenty retail stores in nine states and they're wildly successful in malls . They're often the second highest grossing per square foot space after an Apple store . You know bonobos away luggage Dollar Shave Club and these brands that start their own brick and mortar becomes like an amplifier for them and it becomes a credibility enhancer. I was talking to my friend Greg Pearlman who was the head of marketing at Sonos and when he got to Sonos they had no brick and mortar . And Greg said you know you guys are sort of in the music business now you need some music credibility because you do you're in Europe . How people play music. So he opened their first kind of experiential space right down the street here on Libera and Beverly called the Sono studio and the a really beautiful designed listening room in there but also a whole concert venue where bands come in like three nights a week . They'd have a bar and he said what he learned from that is it's not like every customer in the world they're sold globally is going to come to that retail space but they know because they see it on social media or they hear about it . They know that you have it and just the fact that they know you have that increases your credibility in their eyes. And I thought that was an interesting insight . They went on to build them in New York and London and they were very successful for them.
Speaker 1What are your thoughts on scaling . I mean once you have you know you talked a little bit there about retail but I mean if you're setting up an experience of event it's successful . People have a good response to it you know is that something that always should be scaled .
Speaker 10We like let's do a 10 city tour or a 100 city tour or get up to full time a bunch of full time crews that are going around and doing this in other areas or is one kind of good enough and then you just you know get the videos out there for people to be able to share in that moment while they watch it as in terms of entertainment.
Speaker 6Well I think you've got to take it on a case by case basis every brand is in a different position. But I think generally if you feel like it works . And again the RSI is hard but if you feel like an event let's say yes you're a smaller brand and you're starting out with some kind of live in person activation and you you just feel like that was successful . The word of mouth was positive . You got the story out . You felt like Wow that that felt good to us . We built relationships with current and potential customers could we expand that . And I think it is worth looking at ways to expand it might be geographically like hey we tried it here in L.A. let's try it in New York and Chicago it might be . Well that was a small one . Let's do a bigger one . It might be while we need more in-person staff for that we got to hire some more people in order to ramp up or we have to hire an agency to help us manage that in different places . So there's no one answer to that question but if you feel like it's working it is probably worth expanding at some level. Yeah yeah . How .
Speaker 10What would be your vice for small businesses so are entrepreneurs people that you know have 10 or less employees that are trying to grow trying to get there their companies up if they wanted to begin you know getting into the experiential marketing or creating experience around their company and and impacting others What advice would you have for them.
Speaker 6I mean look it depends on the business but there are all kinds of little ways to do that from meet ups inviting like inviting lets say you get a bunch of customers together and you invite somebody like you Brian Merritt in to talk to them about you know digital marketing or Facebook marketing. Okay that's helpful that cost very little . It provides value provides value tradeshow boosts or another one you know I've worked with so many brands on different kind of trade show or Expo booths and what happens is like I was just at a big cycling event in Colorado called SBT gravel which is an incredible event in Steamboat and they had a little expo there and I was so disappointed that most of the brands that showed up in some of these are pretty good size international brands . They would like just put up a 10 by 10 Booth put out a card you know a folding table and throw some product and I'm like You guys are so not imagine it would take no money . It just some arts and crafts and thinking to be more creative invite people in create some kind of way to connect people with each other or educate them amplify that with some content . And so I think there is a herd mentality where people just go to the lowest common denominator and I'm I'm consistently underwhelmed at trade shows how little creativity and thought thoughtfulness is put into activations and that kind of stuff doesn't really cost any more .
Speaker 1Yeah it's just about like putting some thought into it. They had they had a booth . I remember seeing at one of these shows where it was a huge like over oversized treadmill like a massive one . And it was like Can you keep up at the two hour pace right of the guy . That was Ryan Hall Yeah. And it was so much fun to watch people hit on and I guess I can do it . And then a minute later boom they fall off the edge .
Speaker 8Yeah . That was ASX at the time . And those were my friends. Shannon Scott and Bill Logi who built that act I love this great a great idea .
Speaker 1It is core with the audience . It rings true it's a challenge . So people always love a good challenge in terms of how you know do something that relates with the business that you're in and be like Can you do this . Here's a challenge for you and it was just fun because they had all sorts of people and people that look like you know big bodybuilder guys and they get on there and after a couple of minutes you know they all ran off the end of the foam pit. It was just fun to watch to be like Yeah. I'm finding this entertaining and I don't know how long I would last and you know it was just a fun way to bring in the experience of running and me and the a world champion when it comes to running a marathon. Great idea . Yeah. Any final words as we kind of come to a close. Do you have any you know words of wisdom for any other business owners in regards to experience or marketing or just business in general that you would like to leave is kind of some . Some final words of wisdom .
Speaker 6I think the most important thing like we started talking about is for brands that not only have a point of view but like really come put a stake in the ground come up with a mission statement and tell us what you stand for and who you are it's always better for brands to appeal to a small group of people and be super relevant for them than try and be all things to all people and I see it as a problem with both large brands and small that they won't quite commit to having a point of view and I just think that is so important. Like you look at a brand like Patagonia which has gone all in on like outdoor gear and sustainability if you're into those things like that's your brand . There's no there's not even a close second in that space and that is what has made that brand so enduring and have you know they've got a they've got a community that will lay down in front of a train for them . And that's because they've gone all in on one point of view .
Speaker 1I love it. Thank you so much for being on the show was wonderful advice. It's great to have you here . Peter great. Thanks for having me Brian. You got it. Thank you for listening to the Duke of digital podcast with Brian Schmidt .
Speaker 3One to network with other business owners . Join our exclusive group at Facebook dot com slash groups slash Duke of digital. Fancy the Duke diva five star review on your favorite podcast app and you could be mentioned on the show . The Duke of digital was produced by advertise mint and recorded in Hollywood California. All rights reserved.