With last year’s Dorset Cereals experiential tour delivering 25 live days, 100,000 sample giveaways and an experiential reach of over 280,000, the brand will again be touring family-friendly festivals this summer.

The Dorset Cereals sampling bar will visit a number of fetsivals, including Deer Shed Festival, Camp Bestival and Carfest South, allowing festival-goers to see, touch and taste the product range on offer. A range of handmade family games and activities will be available on the stand to keep visitors entertained and reflect the Dorset Cereals brand.

The brand will build upon last year’s prize draw campaign by offering consumers the chance to take part in its new photo mechanic and win a trip to Dorset.

Dorset Cereals’ tour is again being delivered by Circle Agency, which has refreshed the festival schedule to enable a more focused target audience to discover the brand and its new products.

The Dorset Cereals Campsite Takeover also headed back to Cornbury Music Festival at the beginning of July 2017 for the festival’s final year, to bring breakfast joy to campers. Last year, the takeover saw over 3,000 wet samples served, 124 families had a helping hand putting up their tents and over 152 people participated in Dorset’s morning yoga sessions.

Festival-goers were again be invited to a free Dorset Cereals ‘breakfast extravaganza’ complete with long banqueting tables lined with the Dorset Cereals products, and a range of morning activities including yoga, kids morning wake up sessions, face painting, festival headband decorating and an all-day family games area. To further enhance the ambience and create a festival vibe within the tent, a live acoustic performer played for campers throughout the day.

Alex Naranjo, marketing manager for Dorset Cereals, says: “We are very excited to be out on the road again this year. We have lots of new products to share with people and can’t wait to meet them to see what they think. We learnt so much from our consumers last year that it made total sense to build on this. We have again worked to create a premium experience that reflects our brand and have already had a great start at Wychwood Festival.”

Claire Stokes, Founder and Managing Director of Circle Agency, comments: “Having last year proved that deeper engagement leads to stronger ROI, Dorset Cereals has once again invested in experiential. Having witnessed strong overall results last year it has cemented the channels value within the overall marketing mix. We have analysed and built upon previous successes, identifying which aspects of the campaign worked best and evolved our activities to form this year’s tour. We were able to closely analyse last year’s impact and are hoping to further build upon this during this year.”

A video of the activation at Cornbury Festival can be viewed here.

Circle Agency’s 2015 festival experiential campaign for Dorset Cereals, Life Begins at Breakfast Lodge, won Gold in the Trial & Awareness category in the IPM Awards 2016.

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LSI Netherlands BV – owner of the Peperami brand – and agencies TLC Marketing and Sense were crowned the big winners at The IPM Awards 2017, taking home the trophies for Brand Owner of the Year, Agency of the Year and the coveted Grand Prix Award respectively.

This year’s winners, which were announced at the IPM’s black-tie Awards Gala on Wednesday June 7 at the London Hilton Park Lane, showcased and celebrated the very best in creativity and effectiveness in the promotional marketing industry.

The evening commenced with opening addresses from Lord Black of Brentwood, President of the IPM, and John Sylvester, the IPM’s chairman and Chairman of Sodexo Benefits & Reward Services UK, while the host for the event was Strictly Come Dancing star, Claudia Winkleman.

LSI was named as Brand Owner of the Year, after collecting two Gold and two Silver trophies for its campaign linking Peperami mascot, the Animal, with the Angry Birds movie.

TLC took the Agency of the Year accolade, having picked up four Gold awards and a Silver for a range of different campaigns.

The Grand Prix went to ‘real world’ agency Sense for its #H2O activation, part of the ‘Discomfort Future’ campaign on behalf of The Economist. This saw potential subscribers offered free coffee apparently made from recycled water from a portable toilet, to highlight the issue of water scarcity around the world. It won two Golds and was selected by the IPM awards judges as the best of the best.

The picture above shows Sense collecting their award from Lord Black (left) and the evening’s host, Claudia Winkleman (right).

Other agencies celebrating multiple trophies at the IPM Awards 2017 included The Circle Agency, ZEAL Creative, Toucan and Brand & Deliver. Behaviour change experts 23red managed to pick up Gold, Silver and Bronze in the Not for Profit, Charities and Public Sector category, the second time the agency has achieved this impressive feat.

John Sylvester, Chairman of the IPM, said: “The IPM Awards celebrate outstanding promotional marketing from the very best UK agencies and underscore our commitment to supporting best practice, creativity, effectiveness and innovation. Our Awards are open to everyone in the marketing industry and this year it was great to see both some familiar faces and some newcomers amongst the winners and the audience.”

This year, winners of Gold, Silver and Bronze IPM Awards all qualify for entry into the IMC European Awards, and the IPM will be contacting agencies shortly to explain how to take advantage of this. John Sylvester observes: “The UK produces world-class promotional marketing campaigns, and we want as many of our winners as possible to enter the IMCs so we can underline our leadership in this vitally important sector of the marketing and advertising industry.”

Sponsors for the IPM Awards 2017 included headline sponsor Sodexo, Westfield Shoppingtowns, Sykes, Emirat, Whistl, Granby Marketing Services, Promotional Handling, i-movo, POD Staffing, Peazie and Pictures Experience.

A full list of this year’s winner can be found on the IPM website.

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Leading sports nutrition brand Maximuscle saw thousands of fitness fanatics visit its stand at this year’s BodyPower Expo from May 12 14, 2017. The event was the first time Maximuscle’s latest products and flavours had been offered to consumers, and the brand’s stand included a sampling bar featuring an array of new products, free giveaways, fitness challenges and appearances by leading sports and fitness personalities.

The stand and related marketing activity was put together for Maximuscle by award-winning promotional and experiential specialists Circle Agency.

Following the success of the deadlift challenge at last year’s event, Circle Agency introduced a Bench Press Challenge to the 2017 event, inviting attendees to test their strength by bench pressing their own body weight, with those managing the most reps being crowned the winner.

Maximuscle brand ambassadors and nutrition experts were on hand to offer advice on products, fitness and nutrition. Ambassadors including boxer Anthony Yarde, fitness trainer Bradley Simmonds and WBBF Pro legend Wolé Adesemoye spurred on competitors and a male and female leaderboard on the stand kept track of the best performers each day.

Also on the stand was a digital photo studio which created an animated gif of participants on an Ibiza beach, helping bring to life the Maxi #IbizaChallenge competition. Those who signed up to any of the on-stand activities were given a Maximuscle goody bag which included a branded shaker packed with product samples.

Maximuscle also retailed on the stand with exclusive show offers, offering Maximuscle products at discounted rates which were exclusive to BodyPower.

Neil Hooper from Circle Agency says: “Following a successful event last year, we ensured we pulled no punches when activating the Maximuscle stand at BodyPower Expo 2017.  We created three targeted on-stand activations to entice people onto the stand and encourage people to sample the new range of products and flavours being showcased for the first time. The stand was a big success with hundreds of people taking part in the bench press challenge and animated photo booth, with participants sharing their experiences on social media which allowed us to reach people far beyond the event.”

BodyPower Expo has grown into the biggest fitness event in the UK, welcoming thousands of visitors and athletes from all over the world.

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PlayStation UK is running a nationwide tour aimed at bringing its Virtual Reality titles to gamers.

Visiting six locations throughout the UK, The Future of Play Tour features a series of experiential PlayStation 4 events offering gamers the opportunity to participate in the immersive world of PlayStation VR.

The roadshow kicked off at the end of September with a launch at EGX, the UK’s biggest gaming event, which took place at Birmingham’s NEC, followed by two pop up experiences in Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow and Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield.

The tour, put together for PlayStation by experiential specialists Circle Agency, has been designed to allow the maximum number of visitors to be able to trial, with 20 playable stations available for both pre-booked appointments and walk in trials.

Circle Agency and PlayStation then transformed East London events space Kachette into an immersive venue where fans could experience a range of PlayStation VR titles. As part of the official launch week celebrations, the pop up event was open from Wednesday October 12^th through Sunday October 16^th. Titles which gamers were able to sample included race game DRIVECLUB VR, Gotham-themed adventure Batman: Arkham VR, survival horror Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and alien shooter Farpoint.

Outside of the PlayStation VR area, gamers were also able to see the latest cutting-edge technology from Sony up close, with the PlayStation 4 Pro, the world’s most powerful console, on display before its official launch on November 10^th.

A host of experienced brand ambassadors were on hand to walk visitors through the games and offer advice on the PlayStation VR headset, the PlayStation 4 consoles and accessories.

Tom Whitaker, Group Marketing Manager at Sony Interactive Entertainment UK, said: “PlayStation VR changes the way we play games and trying it is fundamental to understand that. We wanted to let as many people as possible experience The Future of Play Tour, to showcase what PlayStation has in store this year.” 

Claire Stokes, Founder and Managing Director at Circle Agency, added: “If ever there was a product that suited an experiential marketing strategy at launch, this is it.  Virtual Reality is a product that is extremely difficult to comprehend without the opportunity to experience it first-hand.  Being able to provide that opportunity for gamers nationwide has been an absolute thrill.”

The Future of Play Tour is set to appear at Cabot Circus in Bristol from October 20^th to 23^rd and then at the Old Granada Studios in Manchester from 27^th to 30^th October.

There is also a supporting website, www.trypsvr.com.

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PlayStation offered gamers the chance to experience exclusive previews of PlayStationVR and its latest titles at video games event EGX Rezzed at London’s Tobacco Dock over the weekend of April 7^th to 9^th 2016.

EGX Rezzed, hosted by Eurogamer’s parent company Gamer Network, is one of the UK’s leading video games events, attended by thousands of gaming fans to London’s Tobacco Dock. Following on from the success of EGX 2015, which took place at Birmingham’s NEC in September, PlayStation again brought in experiential marketing experts Circle Agency to activate its presence.

Circle Agency transformed one of the vaults at Tobacco Dock into a fully immersive area where gamers could experience PlayStation’s latest technology, PlayStationVR, and test their skills on a host of different titles, including RIGS: Mechanized Combat League, PlayStation VR Worlds, Playroom VR, Battlezone, Rez Infinite and SUPERHYPERCUBE. EGX Rezzed was the first UK consumer event where fans could experience many of these titles first hand, in advance of the PlayStationVR’s October 2016 release.

Twelve gaming stations were set up, showcasing six different titles, along with an indie section to demo smaller, independent games. A photo booth was installed to present fans with a GIF of themselves wearing the VR headset, which could be shared on social media to help boost brand engagement. For those looking to take a break from all the on-screen action, a ‘chill out lounge’ offered soft furnishing and free PlayStation branded refreshments.

Claire Stokes, MD and founder of Circle Agency, commented: “We were really excited to help PlayStation activate at EGX Rezzed this year, as it provides the perfect audience to showcase PlayStationVR first hand. With so many devoted gamers in attendance it was vital that we created an immersive, stimulating and rewarding experience that left them wanting more.  In this instance our job was to ensure that the process of facilitating demand for trials was as seamless as possible, and that we created lots of opportunities for those who experienced it to shout about this great technology.”

Although Playroom VR was available for walk-ins to trial on arrival, fans could also pre-book a slot before the event to trial the full catalogue of games available and to ensure they didn’t miss out.

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