Why Luxury Brands Use Experiential Marketing (+5 Experiential Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign)
Luxury shoppers don’t just want to buy products or services—they want to buy an experience. The end goal isn’t the material product, but rather the feeling and memories that the product and brand give the customer. But how do you nurture that emotional bond and turn it into a purchase? With experiential marketing, luxury brands have the power to shape and influence that feeling at every step of the customer’s journey.
From unique personalization to excellent customer service and unforgettable in-person experiences, experiential marketing elevates even the biggest high-end labels. Chanel, Gucci, and Lululemon are just some of the luxury brands that have recognized and tapped into the rewarding world of experiential marketing.
In this article, we deep-dive into experiential marketing, to understand exactly what it is, how it benefits luxury brands, how to create your own experiential marketing strategy, as well as some examples of it in action. Got your diving gear on? Let’s take the plunge.
What Is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential marketing, sometimes also referred to as engagement marketing, directly engages an audience in an event created by a brand. As the name would suggest, it invites consumers to participate in an experience—whether that’s a pop-up store, workshop, party, or hands-on activity—to create moments that stay in the minds of consumers.
These events will create experiences that reflect the values of the brand, helping to build brand awareness and form stronger customer relationships, while simultaneously promoting their products or services.
Why Is Experiential Marketing Beneficial for Luxury Brands?
Luxury brands are particularly well-equipped to deliver experiential marketing to their customers. Here’s why:
PROVIDES AUTHENTIC IN-PERSON EXPERIENCES
Luxury consumers crave elevated, face-to-face experiences from the brands they shop with. Despite the popular belief that consumers prefer to shop online, 77% have said they expect to visit a luxury store equally or more often in the coming year.
STRENGTHENS CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Experiential marketing isn’t just about selling products, it’s about building stronger customer relationships with the brand. When it comes to the luxury shopping market, consumers will be loyal to the brands that make them feel their best. So, through experiential marketing, brands can reinforce their customer loyalty. This is especially important in an industry where 80% of a luxury brand’s business comes from just 20% of their entire customer base.
CREATES SHAREABLE CONTENT
With experiential marketing, the benefits don’t end as your customers leave. In the era of social media, those attending the event are likely to be capturing and sharing content about your brand and the event, for free. Depending on the type of event you’re hosting, it could be normal luxury shoppers, or you could curate the guest list with suitable influencers that resonate with your brand. As so many millennials and Gen Z—core luxury consumers—are active on social media, encouraging more of this shareable content is key.
INCREASES BRAND AWARENESS
As the attendees of your event share content on social media, it can help to grow brand awareness. Truly great experiential marketing captured by great content has the potential to go viral, reaching a much wider audience that contains new customers.
How to Create an Experiential Marketing Strategy
DETERMINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
To create the best experience that leaves a lasting, favorable impression on your customers, you’ll need to tailor it to the right audience. In your general marketing strategy, you may have a series of customer segments or personas already defined. Choose who you’ll be targeting with this event, to help you plan how to connect with them and align the experience with their aspirations and desires.
CHOOSE YOUR MEDIUM
Experiential marketing encompasses many forms. Some event ideas include:
Pop-up stores
Classes and workshops
Product demos or sampling
Metaverse Experiences
Exclusive dinners
Parties
Select one that suits your brand, your chosen audience, your product, and aligns with the goal of your experiential marketing event.
ADVERTIZE THE EVENT
To ensure that your core audience is aware of the event, along with the specifics of when and where it is, as well as how to attend, you’ll need to promote it. Of course you’ll want to create some organic promotional content to share on your social media pages, it would also be a good idea to use paid advertising here.
Paid ads let you target a specific audience with particular likes and interests, meaning you can reach people who are aware of your brand but may not follow your social media, or who may not be aware of your brand yet. You may also opt to enlist the help of a couple of relevant influencers to spread the word.
CAPITALIZE ON ITS SUCCESS
The event should generate a lot of publicity, which you can then leverage as good PR. There are several ways for you to prolong the buzz around the event, including:
Writing up the experience into a blog or press release
Sharing customer feedback and testimonials about the event which showcase how beloved your brand is
Sharing planned content captured by your brand on your social media
Sharing user-generated content (UGC) across your social pages, as well as paid ads and your website.
Examples of Experiential Marketing
CHANEL'S RETRO GAMING POP-UP
Chanel hosted an arcade experience, the "Coco Game Club", at the rooftop of Galeries Lafayette in Paris. The unique beauty-centric gaming experience promoted the launch of Chanel’s "Red Coco" collection. With the help of influencers and DJs, the event was a success.
WILSON GOLF'S PRODUCT DEMOS
Wilson holds over 400 events across the US, Europe, and Australia every year, inviting customers to come and try out their new clubs for free. At the event, customers can enjoy promotions and custom fittings.
BALENCIAGA AND CROC'S CO-BRANDING
Balenciaga and Cros are two familiar brands that have a long-standing co-branding partnership. With every release of a new collaboration, the pair makes headlines. The shoes are often launched at exclusive runway events, but even simply having influencers or celebrities wear the shoes to notable occasions is enough to cause a stir.
LULULEMON YOGA CLASSES
When Lululemon first launched its store in Manchester, England, the brand offered free drop-in yoga classes every Sunday morning.
With a customer base full of yoga enthusiasts, this is a clever way of attracting both new and existing customers to the store. It was such a hit, people were queueing up early to ensure that they secured a spot in the sessions. Class attendees would walk through the shop floor to get into the yoga studio, ensuring that they were seeing the products both on the way in and way out of the branded experience.
GUCCI LAUNCHES NFTS
Gucci are securing their space in the metaverse. They launched into the NFT space with a movie that was inspired by their Aria collection. A huge success, the film was sold in a Christie’s-led auction.
Their next move was to team up with Roblox to launch ‘Gucci Garden’ — inspired by their real-life show in Florence. In this virtual world, users could explore themed rooms, try on, and purchase Gucci NFTs to wear digitally in the game. To give you an idea of just how valuable this realm of digital fashion can be, Gucci sold the virtual version of their iconic Dionysus bag for $4,115, which is more than the physical item.
Experience Luxury Marketing Success
Inspired to take your experiential marketing to the next level? Block & Tam are the experts in luxury marketing. Get in touch with our digital marketing team today to launch your next data-driven luxury marketing campaign.
