Skift Take
With so much digital noise overwhelming our lives, CMOs are seeing live events in a new light to better engage distracted audiences.
Chief marketing officers are investing more in event and experiential marketing these days, because live brand experiences are proving their ability to engage audiences effectively in an increasingly noisy world filled with so much digital marketing.
However, marketers should focus more on defining their brand culture and aligning their event mission statements around that to differentiate their value proposition and drive attendance in today's experience economy.
According to last year's EventTrack 2015 survey, prepared by the Event Marketing Institute and experiential marketing agency Mosaic, event marketers reported a 6% rise in their budgets overall for the year.
More telling, over 58% of them said those budgets were funded directly by corporate, rather than being scavenged from other marketing budget buckets, versus 35% who said the same in 2014. Furthermore, 65% of marketers reported seeing a direct sales lift as the result of experiential marketing, compared to 59% in 2014.
"Marketers around the world are embracing experiential marketing as a primary driver of their marketing mix," said Jeff Stelmach, president of Mosaic. "Experiential marketing is being used as both a standalone channel and as an integrated part of overall campaigns."
Meaning, live events are closing the loop in the marketing journey developed
