Where it's at...

The last couple of our "Are you experienced?" pieces have looked at some of the more complex elements of experiential marketing (XM), so we thought we’d get back to basics with this one and look at one of the core experiential marketing skills: Location planning.

Recently, we've created experiences at the beach, university O'days, shopping centres, the city centre and even in the middle of a busy street during Fringeworld. So we thought we'd discuss what makes a good location for an experience?

Like all marketing, success in XM depends on getting the right message to the right people, in the right way. When we have a clear view of the target audience, one of the first things we do is to map out where they live, work and play. This is the basics of location planning.

Finding the audience, however, is only part of the challenge. We also need the people at that location to engage with us in the way we have planned.

 A mind-blowing experience will create little impact if people don't have the time to interact with it 

 There are a number of factors that moderate the impact a brand experience can create. One of those things is mental or cognitive capacity. We could create the most mind-blowing experience of all time but if we locate it in a place where people simply do not have the time, ability or motivation to engage properly with it, it will deliver very little impact.

A great example of this is a train station, which might see 60,000 people every morning…. but what % of those are on their way to work, late, pre-caffeine or preoccupied?

Or alternatively, is a University O Day the right location if you're competing with hundreds of other brands for the attention of an overwhelmed student?

 On the whole, we find that location planning depends on a wider range of factors than you might think. Matching the location to the audience means more than simply audience density, it is equally important to consider audience mindset and their likely dwell time.

So, Yagan Square in Perth CBD, for example, would be an ideal location if you were looking for a high volume, light touch engagement like sampling, however, it probably wouldn’t offer the kind of dwell time and engagement needed for a more complex interaction.

 If you’d like to find out a bit more on how to plan the location for your next brand experience or activation we’d love to chat. Drop us a line.

 Are You Experienced? is an ongoing series of thought pieces that we think are important and interesting. We hope you do too. 

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