Julia Start is the Marketing Director at events agency Bray Leino Events, Part Of Marketing Agency Bray Leino.

Event Marketing Strategy: How to leverage conference marketing and exhibitions for your brand: Part TWO

Julia Start is the Marketing Director at events agency Bray Leino Events, part of the marketing agency group Bray Leino.

How to leverage conference marketing and exhibition strategy for your brand: Part ONE

Need to give your new-business strategy a kick? Got some budget for event marketing? Ironed your networking trousers and polished your comfortable shoes? Sounds like you’re ready to take on an industry exhibition.

Event marketing trends show large and small brands across B2B and B2C sectors, from oil and gas to fashion and retail, expending increasing amounts of time and effort on these large-scale networking jamborees; building stands, strategy, and industry profile.

So, your company has chosen to improve customer experience presenting your business online more efficiently. Whether it’s a website or an app, in recent years the knowledge and expertise of how to create better online products has evolved considerably and is now considered a science more than an art. But how do we go about selecting the right UX agency for us?

Agency search and selection

James Jesse Garrett, a User Experience designer awarded by Wired magazine, recently told Mashable that “it has been interesting to watch the evolution of user experience”. In the course of 10 years user experience has become an essential part of product strategy and one of the factors to attribute to this change, according to Garrett, is Apple’s success. The Cupertino company is, in essence, a UX company, “they imagine experiences and then work out what are the right technologies to leverage to create the experience they want to deliver” says Garrett.

Experiential Marketing in Festivals FMCG’s biggest opportunity or just another shopping centre?

Experiential marketing in festivals 

Over the past decade, festivals have become a core part of our cultural currency. The number of festivals across the UK has boomed; there are now more than 500 music festivals alone (compared to 20 back in 1998), and what festivals offer has changed dramatically – they are now less about the music and more about the entire experience they offer.

However, despite the evolution of the format of the festival itself, many FMCG brands have failed to shift their approach to festivals accordingly and see fill the experiential marketing gap. This is surprising as, arguably, it is the FMCG industry that is best placed to capitalise on the shift.

In my last blog, 'What is decoupling in marketing and advertising?' I dealt with the history and context of decoupling in marketing and advertising. I now want to focus on some of the benefits.

Writing a brief for potential marketing agencies doesn't have to be a drama.

While there are many tools, templates and tips available to help you when writing a brief on our website, we understand that starting with a blank white sheet of paper can be a bit daunting.

Are you selecting an agency? Many regional corporates (large and small) choose large advertising network agencies, but are they the best choice?

How do you keep up with branding trends, stay new and stand out? 'New' may not be the answer for your developing brand strategy, argues Max Wright, Strategy Director at Kindred.

When it comes to brand identity development and creating a brand strategy, the concept of 'Newism' is hard to ignore. I suspect that this thrill of the new is driven by seeking standout at all costs or the ego-centric view that our audiences are just as obsessed with the new as we are.

You can read part one of this series here.