Creative agency Haygarth and Kiehl’s – the luxury beauty retailer – ‘Face the extremes’ campaign went live last weekend in an innovative retail experience at its Covent Garden store.

Since Kiehl’s best-selling Ultra Facial Cream is ‘great at handling the extreme conditions our skin can’t’, Haygarth used this nugget as inspiration.

Intrigued passers-by were encouraged to engage with Mr. Bones and ‘Face the extremes and win’ by handing out innovative hot and cold reveals – activated by thermal in-store displays – to reveal their prize.

But that wasn’t the only thing catching shoppers’ attention. Brand ambassadors were on site, offering expert skin consultations in store, and a temperature-themed digital window display that brought to life freezing ice and scorching dryness conditions to create a stunning disruptive installation.

The activation was supported on Instagram, where bespoke content hosted on Kiehl’s account encouraged their wider community to get involved.

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Written by Paul Cope, Managing Director of the IPM in collaboration with Andrew Orr, Client Services Director, TRO, Helen Hanson, Founder and Creative Director, Hel’s Angels, Neil Survilla, Business Director, Kreate and Joe Sheppard, Managing Director, POD Staffing.

This article was first featured in Campaign this week and presented by this group on behalf of the IPM Experiential Community at the Event Production Show, Olympia on 26^th February.

The past decade has seen a much-reported surge in the ‘experience economy’. People are seeing the value of moments and interactions over stuff. Which makes sense. We’ve got loads of stuff, but we crave opportunities to connect, experience and share more than ever. Watch ‘Minimalism’ on Netflix, read ‘Stuffocation’ by James Wallman or talk to your nearest millennial if you’re yet to be convinced by this burgeoning trend.

As a consequence, the expectation of what experiential marketing can, and should, achieve for brands has not unreasonably increased significantly. Our understanding of consumer behaviour and how people interact with experiences, the opportunities presented by emerging new tech, and the tools and techniques we use to measure the effectiveness of these experiences have all evolved at great pace.

However, this development doesn’t appear to be equally true of the highly specialist area of experiential staffing. Commoditisation and a ‘race to the bottom’ on price have been worryingly prevalent during the same ten-year period. Hourly rates have, for the most part, remained at the same level as they were in 2009. Not when adjusted for inflation or in real terms… the same amount. This has had – and is having – a hugely detrimental effect on the quality of individual that can be hired and the level of training that can be given, inevitably impacting the success of experiential activation.

According to Andrew Orr, Client Services Director at TRO: “In a world seemingly dominated by the language of uncertainty – the gig economy, surveillance capitalism, fake news, chat bots, click farms, Artificial Intelligence and so on – people are crying out for the human touch, and that includes from brands. In our headlong rush towards all things tech, it is essential that we don’t forget the human and their unique role in delivering emotional connection”.

Who hasn’t been enjoying a well thought-through and fantastically realised event or brand experience, only to have the whole thing scuppered by a monosyllabic gum-chewing student or grumpy out of work actor thrusting a product sample in your general direction? Often this is the outcome of a depressingly familiar erosion of the staff hourly rate and training cuts throughout the development process, and is entirely avoidable.

Effective recruitment and appropriate levels of training are, of course, essential steps in delivering remarkable human interaction. Helen Hanson, Creative Director and founder of Hel’s Angels, is very clear on this point: “There are many different types of staffing, but we must accept that experiences which demand hand-picked and trained Brand Ambassadors will cost more. The job of a Brand Ambassador is often to be the face of a brand, to create a bond of trust between that brand and its target consumers. Like any credible role, this requires a thorough search and selection process, skills testing, cultural mapping and matching, and a fit-for-purpose training programme.”

Perhaps then, by glimpsing into the near future and attempting to understand the context within which brand experiences will need to perform, we can truly appreciate what we need to do now from a staffing point of view to positively influence success. For Neil Survilla, Business Director at Kreate, the first step is to appreciate the cultural landscape: “We’re seeing a number of growing trends that are influencing the work we do: the desire for deeper, longer-term experiences, the expectation of cultural relevance and appreciation, sustainability, seamless integration of tech, social reach and proof of success. These are all aspects which require very specific skills from the brand ambassadors staffing the experience, and if any of these elements falter then effectiveness measures usually suffer”.

Add to this the need for water-tight compliance (codes of conduct, HFSS, GDPR, employment law etc), the opportunity to develop rich content that can be enjoyed beyond a one-off experiential campaign, and a growing transactional/retail aspect and it’s clear that much is expected of the people at the brand coalface.

At the IPM we will be supporting the industry in this evolution of the brand ambassador, specifically by working with our members (and beyond) to agree future-proofed standards of skills, training, pay and conduct. Creating a support network that protects brands, staff and agencies alike, and calling out great – and less than great – working practices, will go some of the way to securing a bright future for experiential staffing. The rest will be up to the people that do it.

I’ll leave the last word to Joe Sheppard, Managing Director of POD Staffing: “Our industry is actually in a pretty good place. The benefits of experiential are clear. But there’s still work to be done. The very best activations have a quality brand ambassador team at their heart, so cutting standards, pay and training at this key point of interaction is completely counter-productive”.

The message, then, is clear: when it comes to implementing great brand experiences, whatever you do, don’t forget the human.

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In 2018, Häagen-Dazs is returning to the All England Club as the Official Ice Cream of The Championships, Wimbledon, for the third year running. This year, in a celebration of brand ambassador Grigor Dimitrov’s favourite ice cream flavour, Cookies & Cream, the brand is challenging the classic champion Strawberries & Cream to a battle to find out which will be the No.1 flavour of the summer.

The “Let’s Play” campaign, devised by London-based creative agency Space, aims to highlight the fun, playful characteristics of both the brand and Dimitrov by introducing his favourite flavour, Cookies & Cream as the disruptive new challenger to the traditional favourite ‘champion’ Strawberries & Cream.

To mark the collaboration, the brand is introducing his all-time favourite flavour, Cookies & Cream, on a limited-edition stick bar designed by Grigor himself. This will be launched exclusively for Wimbledon to further drive buzz and rival Strawberries & Cream head-on for the duration to become the must-have accessory of The Championships.

Grigor Dimitrov, global ambassador for Häagen-Dazs, says: “I’ve been a Häagen-Dazs Cookies & Cream guy all my life, so when my favourite ice cream brand asked me what flavour I wanted as my limited-edition for my favourite tournament, the answer was obvious as it’s the one flavour I can’t live without. I’m thrilled to be the creator of the flavour challenge for this summer’s #letsplay campaign and had a great time collaborating on my limited-edition which I hope everyone will get to enjoy during The Championships. I love Wimbledon and all its traditions, but this time, I am hoping to start a new one with my Cookies & Cream.’’

The campaign will be activated across a series of content films, placed through Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, as well as out of home and in-store across all major supermarkets with money-can’t-buy experiences.

The ‘Champion vs Challenger’ campaign will also be brought to life on-site at the Häagen-Dazs parlour at The Championships with a face-off between Wimbledon’s favourite strawberries and cream-inspired ‘Champion’ recipe and Grigor’s favourite cookies and cream inspired ‘Challenger’ recipe.

In the build-up to The Championships, Wimbledon, the brand will also be activating the ‘Champion vs Challenger’ series around LTA events, including The Queen’s Club featuring fan engagements with Grigor himself and the Women’s Tennis Association’s (WTA) Tennis On The Thames event at Bernie Spain Gardens on London’s Southbank, at the foot of the OXO Tower.

Here, the brand will bring the #LetsPlay campaign creative to life for consumers in the form of an epic ‘Champion vs Challenger’ piñata game, in which consumers will be invited to participate, with free ice cream sampling happening all day on Thursday 28th June. Fans will also have the chance to challenge a secret women’s tennis star, who is a huge Häagen-Dazs fan herself and join in the flavour challenge.

Arjoon Bose, Head of Marketing at Häagen-Dazs, says: “We are thrilled to be launching our third Häagen-Dazs summer as Official Ice Cream of The Championships, Wimbledon. This year, however, we wanted to be more disruptive and playful, taking a cue from our very own super fan and ambassador Grigor Dimitrov who really germinated the idea for this unexpected flavour challenge, to create what we believe is our most engaging Wimbledon campaign to date. Grigor is a major challenger for Wimbledon himself and backing #TeamCookies which is certainly raising the stakes. But with our Strawberries & Cream keeping the bar high from last year, can Grigor’s favourite live up to the challenge and convince the nation? You decide!”

David Atkinson, Managing Director at Space, adds: “Space is proud to bring to life the collaboration between Häagen-Dazs and Grigor Dimitrov to celebrate some of the brand’s classic flavours during this grass court season. We’d like tennis fans and ice cream lovers to try both flavours and declare support for their favourite. So often ambassadors have only a tenuous link with the brand that they support, and it’s been refreshing to work with someone like Grigor who is sincerely passionate about his love for Häagen-Dazs.”

The campaign forms part of a £1million marketing investment, which includes out of home, TV, PR and social.

Häagen-Dazs is the Official Ice Cream of The Championships, Wimbledon, and British Tennis. The brand is owned by General Mills, which also owns a portfolio of dynamic market-leading brands including Old El Paso, Green Giant, Betty Crocker, Nature Valley and Jus-Rol.

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Brands are needing to communicate their brand stories with more authenticity than ever to meet the demands of ever-changing consumer behaviour, says Ceri Gravelle of eventeem

Telling the brand’s story has never been so key in the experiential industry. With consumers becoming more and more savvy to commercialism, promotional staff are needing to communicate product information and the brand’s story to the tiniest of detail at experiential events.

Consumers want to know if a product is gluten free, vegan, cruelty free, recyclable, organic and along with this, they want an authentic brand story that they can believe in.

Ensuring promotional staff have strong knowledge and clear passion for the product is so important in order to win over the consumer. That means employing promotional staff who are the right fit for the brand is vital.

They need to be able to demonstrate genuine knowledge of the product – for instance, if what’s being promoted is an organic and gluten free product, you need staff who are passionate about organic foods or eat gluten free products themselves, so they can offer genuine interaction with the consumer.

As always, consumers need to ‘buy’ the person before they buy the brand.

Over the past couple of years, clients have been putting more creative thought into the way they communicate brand’s stories to meet the changing behaviour of consumers. One of the key trends has been bringing individuals involved in the production of the product to the sampling events – for example, for the Rachel’s Organic Yoghurt brand, the Welsh dairy farmers who supply the organic milk for ‘Rachel’s’ came along to sampling events.

With the consumers being able to interact with the people involved in the production first-hand, the brand story becomes more reliable and trustworthy, and the customer is more likely to become invested in the product.

Not all clients are able to provide this kind of interaction, but for those that can, it creates a level of authenticity that consumers buy into and that resonates, driving more loyalty, sales and increased brand affinity in the long run.

Another emerging trend over the past year or so is the amount of thought being put into the times of day and the location of an experiential event. If you are promoting a breakfast product, for example, then organising sampling in the mornings around busy commuter areas like train stations will give people on their way to work the chance to try it at breakfast time.

By sampling a product where and when it’s supposed to be used like this, the consumer is better educated and the product becomes so much more useful and relevant to them. Even if you’re running these events in locations with lower footfall, if your activity mirrors the consumer’s real life behaviour, it will have a bigger impact.

Historically, measuring the success of an experiential food or drink sampling campaign has been difficult. The usual protocol is to measure how many products have been distributed, how many people interacted with the staff, and the customer feedback.

But marketing and brand managers are becoming more accountable for their budgets, so they’re having to provide evidence of campaign success in more detail than ever before — and this includes how the consumer’s behaviour has been affected by the campaign and the Return on Investment (ROI) from live engagements.

The industry is trying to tackle the issue of ROI measurement in experiential – so the Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) is developing on a new model to evaluate the effectiveness of experiential which explains how behavioural change of consumers by live engagement should and can be measured. The IPM has put together key principles and a step-by-step approach to how this can work, for pop-up retail, creative sampling, gamification live stunts and performances, to name a few.

This new model will be rolling out over the next 12 to 24 months and will be a huge benefit to those in the experiential industry looking to emphasise the worth of sampling. I know we at eventeem will definitely be looking to utilise it to evaluate our sampling success.

Ceri Gravelle is Managing Director and founder of promotional staffing and experiential agency, eventeem, which specialises in the organisation and staffing of sampling events.

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Lucozade Sport Fitwater, the latest addition to the Lucozade sports drink family, has launched a new campaign featuring unified heavyweight boxing champion and Lucozade Sport brand ambassador, Anthony Joshua. The campaign will include Above The Line (ATL) advertising as well as Out Of Home (OOH), digital and in-store activity.

Since launching last August, Lucozade Sport Fitwater has become the second largest functional water brand in the UK market. This electrolyte water is made by purifying spring water then adding four key electrolytes specifically designed to help replenish what is lost in sweat.

The new ATL campaign is supported by a £3.5 million cross-channel spend. The ATL will incorporate a range of eye-catching outdoor creatives, designed to attract consumers to the still water segment and appeal to the growing demand for functional drinks to enjoy as part of an active lifestyle.

Lucy Grogut, Lucozade Sport Brand Director at Lucozade Ribena Suntory, comments: “We’ve developed Lucozade Sport Fitwater’s latest ATL campaign to grab the attention of existing sports drink consumers, while also appealing to a new audience with a drink perfect for the exercise occasion but with no sugar or calories. We’re confident that this new ATL promotion and £3.5 million investment will support the brand’s offering in the water segment and drive awareness of the product.”

Lucozade Ribena Suntory is one of the leading soft drinks businesses in the UK and Ireland. LRS was formed in 2014 and is part of Suntory Beverage & Food Europe. Its soft drinks brands include Lucozade Energy, Lucozade Sport, Fitwater, Ribena, Orangina and True Nopal cactus water.

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Movie fans across England, Scotland and Ireland visiting selected Vue Cinemas are being offered free samples of new Pop’n Sprinkle popcorn flavouring.

Available in salt & vinegar, candy caramel, cheesy onion, sweet chilli, creamy butter and sour cream & chive varieties, Pop’n Sprinkle comes in sachets which consumers simply tear open and sprinkle over their popcorn and shake lightly.

The new campaign, run by face-to-face marketing specialist StreetPR, gives cinema-goers at selected Vue sites the chance to sample the delights of Pop’n Sprinkle for free.

The brainchild of popcorn-loving South Africans Shannon Teague and Michèle Duplessis, Pop’n Sprinkle was created because the pair missed the huge variety of popcorn flavours available in their home country when they moved to the UK.

“We were accustomed to flavoured popcorn from a very young age,” says Teague. “We loved the popcorn at cinemas almost more than the actual movie itself. After moving to the UK a few years ago you can imagine our disappointment when we realised there were only two options and we decided to do something about it. Our flavours contain no MSG or artificial colouring and are a perfect accompaniment to freshly popped homemade popcorn, standard microwave popcorn and cinema popcorn. They also taste great on fries!”

Michael Hamilton Brown, Client Manager at StreetPR, adds: “Pop’n Sprinkle is now available at Vue cinemas up and down the country, and when launching a completely new product, it’s vital that people get the chance to try it out for themselves before they buy. Our trained brand ambassadors will introduce cinema audiences to Pop’n Sprinkle, showing just how easy it is to transform their popcorn, letting them try the different varieties and daring them to mix and match flavours to create different taste combinations.”

StreetPR will be taking the Pop’n Sprinkle campaign to selected Vue cinemas in Edinburgh, Dublin and London (Fulham Broadway, Romford, Westfield Stratford and Westfield Shepherds Bush).

Launched by entrepreneur James Rix in 2012, StreetPR is the biggest individual supplier of staff to London’s competitive nightlife industry and in recent years has expanded to supply promotional staff and brand ambassadors to gyms, hotels, restaurants, event and festival organisers, retailers, sports and event stadia, the public sector, FMCG brands, telecoms and tech companies.

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Team GB gymnast Nile Wilson, Britain’s Got Talent finalists Twist and Pulse and ballet star Alessia Lugoboni have teamed up with Lucozade Ribena Suntory and Transport for London to promote an offer for commuters of free journeys on the London Underground, using ‘contactless’ Lucozade Energy bottles.

From May 30 to June 2 at Oxford Circus Station during ‘Whoosh Hour’, Lucozade brand ambassadors will be handing out thousands of limited edition Lucozade Energy bottles with contactless chips, like the ones found in TfL’s Oyster Card, embedded in the base. Lucky recipients will be able to use the bottles like Oyster Cards for one free Underground journey.

Lucozade Energy also enlisted Wilson, Twist and Pulse and Lugoboni to help promote the activation with three films featuring them using their talents to get through the station to their tube trains. The contactless bottle give-away and the videos are in support of the brand’s ‘Find Your Flow’ campaign message. The Lugoboni film has been posted to YouTube.

Whoosh Hour is a fully integrated campaign with support from integrated agency The Big Kick, shopper marketing agency Valenstein & Fatt (formerly Grey Shopper), event agency TRO, media agency MediaCom and PR agency Frank PR.

Lucozade Ribena Suntory is putting a considerable marketing budget behind the various offshoots of the umbrella Lucozade brand at the moment. A week ago, it launched a new campaign for Lucozade Sport featuring an on-pack promo offering consumers the chance to win more prizes the more active they are, including fitness trackers, gym memberships, tickets to events such as the FA Cup Final, England football matches, the Tour de France, an Adele concert and holidays to Australia, the US and the Middle East.

At the beginning of April, Lucozade Zero and fashion retailer Missguided announced a collaboration, ‘Zero To Pay’, which was brought to life through on-pack promotion and experiential marketing. The on-pack promotion offered consumers a range of discounts which could be unlocked through codes on mini cans of Lucozade Zero. Targeting city centres, train stations and shopping centres, a sampling campaign offered bespoke miniature cans featuring unique Missguided discount codes. The activity was bolstered at high footfall locations with a ‘Zero to Pay’ nail bar, offering Lucozade Zero-inspired complimentary nail art.

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Sky Mobile, the all-new mobile network from Sky, is running large-scale experiential activations at three of London’s biggest transport hubs, Waterloo, Victoria and Liverpool Street stations.

The activity will see thousands of Sky Mobile-branded phone cases distributed to the public, as well as offering the chance to win prizes on the spot through a ‘Photo Pod’ selfie experience.

tpf is managing the distribution of Sky Mobile-branded phone cases to commuters at London’s Waterloo, Victoria and Liverpool Street stations, and the agency has also created ‘Photo Pods’ to immediately reward on the spot winners to celebrate the launch of the network.

The Photo Pods were designed by independent agency tpf, and feature a bespoke algorithm that randomly select winners throughout the eight-day activation. To be in with a chance of winning a prize, entrants are encouraged to take a selfie in one of the photo pods showing off their new Sky Mobile phone case.

The campaign began on Friday March 31st and will last until Friday April 7th.

In addition to the station activations, roaming brand ambassadors will be handing out more free branded Sky Mobile phone cases to businesses in London.

tpf has managed the project from conceptualisation through to on-the-day organisation, planning the logistics of activity which runs across 96 hours it total, with more than 2,000 prizes to be won, including iPhones, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edges, Sky Q Packages and Sky Mobile sweets.

Bob Suppiah, Director of Promotions and Partnership Marketing at Sky UK, says: “The activity is a great example of all our agencies working together across media planning, outdoor, and promotions; with tpf instrumental in pulling this together for the live experiential activity.”

Dan Meiland, Director, tpf, adds: “Helping with the launch of Sky Mobile is an exciting and ambitious project for the company, and we’re pleased to lead the campaign on the ground with activity that will raise awareness amongst a very large and engaged audience. The Photo Pods will allow Sky to communicate key messaging to consumers in an interactive and fun way and signal the launch of Sky Mobile on a grand scale.”

The project follows on from tpf’s similar promotional activations with Sky, including the launch of Sky Q, Sky One drama Lucky Man, Sky Broadband Minions and Sky Cinema Christmas campaigns.

tpf is an independent agency specialising in promotions, publicity and digital marketing in TV, sport and entertainment, visit tpf.london for further information.

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Real world marketing agency Sense has promoted Account Director Kelda Reddrop to head up its staffing arm, Real People.

In her new role as Staffing Director, Reddrop will oversee all aspects of Real People, including the recruitment, training and management of brand ambassadors.

Answering consumers’ growing demands for authenticity and credibility from brands, Sense launched Real People in 2016 to strategically search, select, train and manage key personnel to run its live brand activations.

“Brand ambassadors are key to the success of our activations, and we take a unique approach to sourcing the right people,” said Reddrop. “We seek out people who can do more than just represent the brand. We look for individuals with the same values to ensure they can fully embody the brand and connect with consumers on a deeper level.”

Reddrop joined Sense from JCDecaux in 2009 as Account Manager. She progressed to Account Director and has gained considerable experience working across campaigns for a range of leading brands including Müller, Timberland, London Luton Airport and Warburtons.

“I’m really looking forward to this exciting new role”, she said. “As well as overseeing the development of Real People and making sure it is supporting Sense’s core values and those of the brands we work with, I will be bridging the gap between our account handling and production teams to ensure faultless execution of campaigns for clients.”

Commenting on the appointment, Sense Managing Director Nick Adams said: “We’re delighted to promote Kelda to Real People Staffing Director. Her thorough knowledge of Sense processes and values, together with her vast experience working with our clients and a deep understanding of Real People’s team will be a great asset in the development of the division going forward.”

Sense launched Real People in 2016 to strategically search, select, train and manage key personnel to run its live brand activations. Real People sources people who can not only represent a brand but who also share the same values to ensure they can fully embody its vision and values and connect with consumers on a deeper level.

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Healthy food brand Graze is giving out one million samples to raise awareness about its on-the-go snack food range, available at retailers.

Brand ambassadors will be handing out packs of Graze’s Veggie Protein Power – which it says is one of its bestselling retail varieties and includes spicy chickpeas, edamame beans and black pepper cashews – outside busy central London mainline rail stations until February 3rd 2017.

Graze has timed the campaign to coincide with the increased interest in healthy eating in January.

The sampling campaign is being handled for Graze by experiential agency Hotcow. Sally Durcan, Managing Director of Hotcow, says: “We know from previous research that brand recognition can increase by over 40% with commuters taking the product to work and having it on their desk. We also know that reminding people of the brand taste has a significant impact in keeping existing consumers buying the brand and new ones moving in to try the brand.”

Graze launched in the UK in 2008. It began by offering an online subscription service where people could sign up for regular deliveries of its healthy food boxes, which can be bought in over 200 combinations. It launched a range of snack products in retailers in July 2015, initially with an exclusive rollout via 850 Sainsbury’s stores. Graze snacks are now available in 7,000 stores across the UK including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Boots.

Graze has also expanded into the US market, both via its online subscription model and through a partnership with US pharmacy chain Walgreens, part of the group which ultimately owns Boots in the UK.

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