EVENT MARKETING IN EMERGING MARKETS

We’re marketing people and for our tribe, one of the most inspiring recent developments in advertising is the amazing things that people are doing with event marketing. We also live and work in Myanmar, one of the world’s most exciting emerging markets right now, so we think a lot about event marketing in developing countries. We’d like to use this post today to share some of our thoughts and observations about it.

Event marketing is often defined narrowly as being a face-to-face encounter between a brand representative, and the consumer, but we prefer a broader definition: Event marketing is creating an experience for your target consumer, whether in person, online, or over social media. This branding strategy is often called “experiential marketing”, since that’s essentially what it is. Brands that can create a memorable – and shareable – experience for their customers, go a long way toward developing a loyal consumer following.

Emerging market advertising challenges

It can be easy to think that creating great marketing campaigns is somehow easier in a developing country. Technologies that have been around long enough to be taken for granted in first-world nations are often new to most of the population. And marketing strategies that would seem dated elsewhere may sometimes impress. But anyone making the mistake of treating their target customers as if they were stupid is absolutely bound for failure. If anything, emerging market consumers have to be more price-conscious and are thus savvier consumers.

With that said, there still are some advantages to working in these countries. Certain event marketing tactics that might seem years out of date in other places, have the potential to generate incredible buzz. A flashmob in London or New York might seem so 2009, but in Phnom Penh, Nairobi, or Bogota, it could easily go viral. Consumers in developing economies also tend to be less jaded about promoting or sharing a brand if its product is great and its marketing is inspiring.

Giving consumers a reason to participate

With very few exceptions, people won’t participate in any event marketing without some sort of incentive. This could be a chance to win something in a contest, a free t-shirt or knick-knack, seeing a celebrity, or just about anything else. Very rarely, the event can be so amazing, and the brand so sought after that people will come just to be there; most of the time though, a deal-sweetener needs to be thrown in.

Why use experiential marketing?

The potential for creative marketing ideas using events is almost limitless, and so are the possible rewards a company can reap. One of the primary objectives of many event marketing campaigns is to build a contact list or social media following, i.e. get emails, numbers or addresses, and get new followers on targeted social channels. People will usually share this information pretty easily, and its value can be tremendous, so even a small budget campaign can reap great rewards.

It’s great when you can present your product to potential customers, but it’s even better when their friends do it for you. Creating an incredible event marketing campaign that people will want to participate in and share is one of the best ways to build brand loyalty in developing countries. Consumers always react more positively when hearing about something from a friend or family member than from a mass-marketed ad campaign. Plus, with social media platforms (looking at you, Facebook) increasingly stomping out organic reach in favor of paid promotion, getting people to share a picture of your product will often get more views than if they shared the page’s picture of it.

One of the biggest challenges in branding and advertising in emerging market countries is targeted luxury marketing. In general, there will be a sizable number of wealthy consumers, but they’ll be a tiny minority of the population. Event marketing can be the perfect solution to this dilemna (part of it, anyway). Creating events for the wealthy is no easy task; it needs to be ultra-exclusive, and better than whatever else invitees could be doing (which is pretty much anything). Still, done right, a truly unique, absolutely fabulous event can be a great way to reach the right audience in a luxury marketing campaign.

Do different

Event marketing campaigns, now more than ever, can leverage a tremendous amount of technology that didn’t exist even a few years ago. The fact that so many consumers, even in developing countries have in their pocket a camera, gps device, and QR code reader, all of which is connected to all of their social media accounts, means there is so much that brands can do to reach them. But none of this means it’s easy. Brands still need to think creatively and give consumers something different. People want experiences, but they don’t want the same ones over and over again. Oh yeah, and they have YouTube so just ripping off someone else’s awesome campaign isn’t gonna cut it. A creative event marketing campaign that gives people a great experience they’ll want to share isn’t easy to create, but it’s damn-effective marketing.