Jo Curtis, co-founder of Jackanory, shares how three Es (Experience, Environment and Engagement) lead to successful experiential activation in the beauty industry.  

When it comes to the beauty sector, social media, e-commerce and tech have brought huge changes to the industry and continue to play an important role. Yet, despite the convenience of shopping online, research suggests that 75 – 80% of consumers still prefer to buy their beauty products offline, through physical, face-to-face experiences. While other retail sectors are suffering closures and losses as footfall dries up, beauty remains a bricks-and-mortar stronghold.

Joanna Rogers, commercial director at Boots, says “Beauty is an industry you want to touch, smell and experience. Our latest research suggests that people treat beauty shopping as ‘fun time’, which means if you create an engaging environment, the customers will come.” Boots has done just this, facing the online challenge head on and completely overhauling its cosmetics offering to create a luxe and alluring experience with benefits you can’t access when online shopping at home. Trending zones, discovery areas and live demonstration areas have created a “beauty playground” where customers can touch, smell and try products in the flesh. Because when it comes to beauty, the ability to sniff, play and experiment with products beats online ordering hands down. IT Cosmetics’ CC Cream may look perfect online, but have you seen, in person, what it can really do for your skin?

High-end retailer Harrods has also redeveloped its beauty hall and hopes for it to become the “most exceptional beauty emporium in the world.” Annalise Fard, Harrods’ director of beauty, accessories, fine jewellery and watches, says, “We understand the importance of investing in bricks and mortar, as through our store we can offer an unparalleled experience and service that continues to keep Harrods at the forefront of retailing.” They hope to capture a larger share of the competitive and rapidly evolving beauty market through what Fard calls “the three Es”: experience, environment and engagement. She says, “The store can’t just be beautifully designed – it needs to be flexible for the future. The new beauty hall will bring trends to life and bring innovation, magic and theatre to Knightsbridge.”

The experiential marketing industry has, of course, been talking about the importance of innovation, magic and theatre for years. Experience, environment and engagement are key pillars of every successful experiential activation. Whether it’s a sampling campaign, a pop-up or an immersive event, if you get the experience and environment right, engagement will naturally follow. Throw in some innovation, a sprinkling of magic, a great deal of theatre, and consumers will not only remember the experience but share it with others. Through engaging experiences, beauty brands can kick-start a real-world connection with their consumers, going above and beyond a soulless online transaction. They can immerse consumers in their brand story – a story consumers can see, feel and hear – fostering a meaningful relationship through emotional connections that can in turn drive long-term advocacy.

Take Tiffany’s impressive 43ft scented Christmas tree at St Pancras last year. The tree featured hundreds of bottles of the brand’s eau de parfum, launched by Coty, as well as baubles and a giant robot made of Tiffany’s familiar blue boxes. The tree pumped out the eau de parfum scent, with the aim of creating a sensorial experience for shoppers, while a pop-up, located under the tree, offered fragrances and gift-wrapping services.

Or Elizabeth Arden’s visually impactful pop-up store to celebrate their artist-inspired limited-edition Eight Hour Collection. Multiple engagement points and dozens of Instagram-able details attracted a younger target audience, sharing the Eight Hour Cream story with a new generation of consumers.

Some might say that Clinique’s first ever pop up shop in New York earlier this year achieved the perfect combination of experience, environment and engagement. The shop immersed the customer into the Clinique iD story in a new and engaging way. A hi-tech consultation recommended the Clinique iD product best for the customer, before they followed a color-coded path to test the recommended product and then customise it with some Instagram-ready stickers. A green-screen photo wall with various props on hand and a virtual reality station generated the magic and theatre required and completed the brand engagement journey.

So, whether in-store or out-of-store, we echo the importance of Annalise Fard’s three Es, for the beauty sector in particular. By focussing on experience, environment and engagement you’ll create stories that consumers can see, smell, touch, hear and sometimes even taste. You’ll create meaningful relationships that will take your consumers on a journey, sparking emotional connections to not only drive trial and awareness, but also long-term brand advocacy, both on and offline.

We hope to see even more bold, brilliant and beautiful experiences from the beauty industry popping up over the next year. In the meantime, it’s 1pm and we’re off to Boots, our nearest beauty playground, for our lunchtime beauty fix. Perhaps it’s just as well we don’t work around the corner from Harrods. That would be dangerous…

The post The importance of experience for the beauty industry appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” should be the mantra for travel marketers targeting Millennials, says Lucy Gillions of Jackanory

We often reference this quote – which has been attributed to a range of people, including Benjamin Franklin and a Chinese Confucian scholar writing 2,500 years ago – when discussing the importance and value of experiential marketing with clients.

That’s because, even today, it has huge relevance – arguably, even greater relevance as a “Millennial mantra”, a quote that underscores Millennials’ desire to be involved in hand-picked authentic experiences, using social media to validate their choice.

It’s no longer a surprise that this emphasis on being unique and growing their identity through culturally-rich experiences and the exploration of the unknown has led to travel being of the utmost importance for Millennials – more important than escaping from their student loans, buying a big-ticket item or even improving their relationships with family and friends.

Savvy travel companies have been quick to catch on to the fact that Millennial travel experiences aren’t the same as those of their predecessors, but rather involve more adventure and the desire for more customisation.

Millennials don’t want to be told by travel brands where they should be visiting and what they should be doing when they get there. They want to be involved in the decision-making, empowered to seek out unique activities and experiences that can be validated on social platforms through a mixture of likes, shares and comments. In fact, 43% of Millennials said that the comments and likes they receive from social media are as important or more important than the trip itself.*

So how can travel bodies, businesses and brands continue to connect with Millennials and benefit from their favourable attitudes towards travel and travel-related spending?

Understanding the motivations of this powerful group of travellers should be the first step. All travel brands should by now be aware of the tensions that exist for Millennials in the travel space: **

• Comfortable vs experiential – what am I expected to do vs how can I explore outside of my comfort zone?
• Digital vs in real life – is this an experience I want to share with my social networks vs how can I live in the moment and not be distracted by daily technologies?
• Realistic vs aspirational – what can I afford vs what do I want?
• Planned vs spontaneous – can I fit everything I want to do in my itinerary vs how do I take advantage of in-the-moment opportunities?
• Informed vs inspired – what brands can I rely on for accuracy and transparency vs what brands can I rely on to inspire my next adventure?

With these tensions in mind, it goes without saying that Millennials are less interested in packaged travel options and instead want to engage in immersive, interactive and hands-on opportunities. Millennials view travelling as vital to the development of their personal narrative and identity which is why the “involve me and I’ll learn” element of the quote resonates so deeply.

They are also reintroducing the trend of food tourism by planning trips with local cultural cuisine in mind. In fact, nearly three-quarters of Millennials seek unique restaurants and dining experiences when deciding where to travel.

If authentic travel experiences are vital to growing Millennials’ personal narratives, then surely one way of connecting with them is for travel bodies, businesses and brands to tap into their own narrative, share their own stories and tease them with authentic experiences on their doorstep?

The Hamburg Convention Bureau did exactly this in order to encourage Millennials to put Hamburg at the top of their city break wish list. By creating Hamburg on Tour, an interactive, socially-shareable, free experience at a venue in Shoreditch, Millennials could immerse themselves in the story of Hamburg, get a taste of the art, culture, food and music and gain some social currency to boot.

Of course, the experience needed to be bite-sized, so as not to replace the city break itself, but also had to be exciting enough to motivate the booking.

Travel Portland took a similar approach, bringing some of the city’s most inspired offerings to The Old Truman Brewery with its You Can, In Portland pop up. From April 19^th to May 7^th, 2018, they offered free vegan tattoos, intimate DJ sets, wine tastings, artists, fashion, comedians, craft beers, coffee and more – giving visitors a taste of what Portland has to offer.

It’s clear that travel bodies, businesses and brands could do worse than keeping “involve me and I learn” as their mantra when looking to engage with Millennials.

If you tell Millennials to do something, it’s unlikely they will. If you preach at them, they won’t listen. But if you work hard to involve them in the decision-making, and offer them unique, immersive and authentic experiences, sharing the story of the destination to motivate bookings, they’ll happily use and share these experiences to grow their personal narrative and identity.

*according to Iconoculture

**taken from FutureCast Millennial Brief on Travel and Lodging 2016

Lucy Gillions is co-founder of Jackanory, an experiential and events agency which believes in using the power of stories to create unique and memorable events and experiences.

The post Using experiential to engage and involve Millennials drives travel bookings appeared first on IPM Bitesize.