Better Experiences.
How do you effectively engage? Experiential marketing activations lead the way. Connecting authentically and genuinely, to convert customers naturally.
Experience is branding at its best. Gen Z and millennials prefer to spend on experiences and don’t trust traditional advertising, which is intrusive and rarely adds value. Engage genuinely and convert naturally with experiential marketing activations and experiential marketing techniques. Efficient and effective, experiential marketing is an impactful tone-setter, attitude former, and catalyst for marketing relevance.
Design
As your experiential marketing consultant, we do our homework to completely understand your brand and its target audience, before applying what we’ve learned designing successful experiential marketing activations that genuinely connect to foster a deep, meaningful, customer connection.
Design
As your experiential marketing consultant, we do our homework to completely understand your brand and its target audience, before applying what we’ve learned designing successful experiential marketing activations that genuinely connect to foster a deep, meaningful, customer connection.
Deliver
Once the brand activation is designed, it’s time to bring it to life. We work with your team to bring the pieces and people together in a timely, budget sensitive manner. Implementing proven experiential marketing strategies to this potent engagement marketing platform, we help your team place it in the right environment at the right time, driving traffic and customers your way.
Deliver
Once the brand activation is designed, it’s time to bring it to life. We work with your team to bring the pieces and people together in a timely, budget sensitive manner. Implementing proven experiential marketing strategies to this potent engagement marketing platform, we help your team place it in the right environment at the right time, driving traffic and customers your way.
Measure
The most important metric for marketers. Once your experiential marketing campaign is live, we employ and rely on emerging data-driven technology to lead the way in measuring and optimizing your campaign to achieve even greater levels of customer engagement. As they say – you can’t manage what you can’t measure – but with data visualization tools we can gauge ROI in real time, maximizing your budget and time.
Measure
The most important metric for marketers. Once your experiential marketing campaign is live, we employ and rely on emerging data-driven technology to lead the way in measuring and optimizing your campaign to achieve even greater levels of customer engagement. As they say – you can’t manage what you can’t measure – but with data visualization tools we can gauge ROI in real time, maximizing your budget and time.
Case Studies
The best brand activations foster a deep, meaningful, customer connection. We’ve worked with over 350 lifestyle brands on their experiential activations and as your experiential marketing consultant, bring that experience, knowledge and best practices to your team.
Music
Red Bull
Mission:
Design a new experiential marketing platform for Red Bull-sponsored music festivals, that elevates and enhances the fan experience and attracts a new demographic segment to the brand.
Strategy:
Dream big, start small. Design and curate an experiential activation in the form of a new artist discovery stage, inviting underground DJs to perform atop a hotel rooftop overlooking the festival site. Invite cutting edge curators, integrate innovative technologies, and invigorate the audience atop a scenic riverfront setting.
Results:
A hotel rooftop party burgeons into a main stage music festival attraction with national acts performing alongside regional trailblazers. A new audience discovers Forecastle Festival and becomes its fastest-growing segment, while Red Bull receives an impactful experiential marketing platform to engage influencers, tastemakers, and early adopters.
Ocean Stage
Music
Red Bull
Mission:
Design a new experiential marketing platform for Red Bull-sponsored music festivals, that elevates and enhances the fan experience and attracts a new demographic segment to the brand.
Strategy:
Dream big, start small. Design and curate an experiential activation in the form of a new artist discovery stage, inviting underground DJs to perform atop a hotel rooftop overlooking the festival site. Invite cutting edge curators, integrate innovative technologies, and invigorate the audience atop a scenic riverfront setting.
Results:
A hotel rooftop party burgeons into a main stage music festival attraction with national acts performing alongside regional trailblazers. A new audience discovers Forecastle Festival and becomes its fastest-growing segment, while Red Bull receives an impactful experiential marketing platform to engage influencers, tastemakers, and early adopters.
World Tour Launch
Virtual Reality
HTC Vive
Mission:
Debut immersive, state-of-the-art, virtual reality technology to the US music festival market. Design an experiential marketing strategy to introduce the technology and drive adoption amongst media, retailers, distributors, influencers, brand superfans and more.
Strategy:
Build, measure, learn. Before taking the highly-anticipated technology on a major media market tour, debut it at Forecastle in Louisville, KY. Properly vet the tech with an experiential activation for 70,000 fans. Invite key stakeholders and influencers to experience it first. Record their experiences for R&D, product development, digital and social media marketing purposes. Take those learnings and optimize the experiential marketing activation for a nationwide tour.
Results:
Launching in a mid-size market, HTC saves valuable resources while gaining the trust, knowledge, data and content it needs to launch nationally. Forecastle receives an extremely popular attraction, meaningful sponsorship revenue, and over a billion media impressions from becoming the first US music festival to debut the new technology.
World Tour Launch
Virtual Reality
HTC Vive
Mission:
Debut immersive, state-of-the-art, virtual reality technology to the US music festival market. Design an experiential marketing strategy to introduce the technology and drive adoption amongst media, retailers, distributors, influencers, brand superfans and more.
Strategy:
Build, measure, learn. Before taking the highly-anticipated technology on a major media market tour, debut it at Forecastle in Louisville, KY. Properly vet the tech with an experiential activation for 70,000 fans. Invite key stakeholders and influencers to experience it first. Record their experiences for R&D, product development, digital and social media marketing purposes. Take those learnings and optimize the experiential marketing activation for a nationwide tour.
Results:
Launching in a mid-size market, HTC saves valuable resources while gaining the trust, knowledge, data and content it needs to launch nationally. Forecastle receives an extremely popular attraction, meaningful sponsorship revenue, and over a billion media impressions from becoming the first US music festival to debut the new technology.
World Tour Launch
Sustainability
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Mission:
Leverage the stimulating music festival environment to convert fan passion into impactful, recycling action.
Strategy:
Partner with Pabst Blue Ribbon to craft a creative, artistic experiential activation in the form of a trading post where fans can redeem recyclables for authentic, one-of-a-kind, collectible merchandise. The bigger the effort, the greater the reward, the cleaner the festival. Experiential marketing strategies that win for everyone.
Results:
Forecastle Festival rises to No. 2 nationally in waste diversion. Pabst receives thousands of inspired brand engagements, new customer relationships, and passionate brand advocates. Music, art, activism® converge to forge an impactful engagement marketing platform that introduced new customers in a new way, while igniting and fortifying their existing, loyal following.
Brand Alliances
Sustainability
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Mission:
Leverage the stimulating music festival environment to convert fan passion into impactful, recycling action.
Strategy:
Partner with Pabst Blue Ribbon to craft a creative, artistic experiential activation in the form of a trading post where fans can redeem recyclables for authentic, one-of-a-kind, collectible merchandise. The bigger the effort, the greater the reward, the cleaner the festival. Experiential marketing strategies that win for everyone.
Results:
Forecastle Festival rises to No. 2 nationally in waste diversion. Pabst receives thousands of inspired brand engagements, new customer relationships, and passionate brand advocates. Music, art, activism® converge to forge an impactful engagement marketing platform that introduced new customers in a new way, while igniting and fortifying their existing, loyal following.
World Tour Launch
Why it works:
Gen Z and Millennials
72% of millennials prefer to spend on experiences while 84% don’t trust traditional advertising. Get ready for Gen Z, who will double-down on this philosophy. Research by Harvard University concluded it is 17X more efficient than any other advertising channel.
Authentic and Connective
Experiences tend to grow fonder in a customer’s mind over time. Authentic brand activations open the door to dialogue, product or service trial, and that coveted first purchase. It’s connective tissue that taps a powerful emotional vernacular.
Better Branding
Experiences connect on a personal level in a natural environment that fosters a deep connection between brand and buyer. Authentic, meaningful, viral and valuable, marketing is better when delivered through experiences.
Topical and Impactful
Experiential marketing strategies capitalize when creative, focused, aligned, and topical to the times. I’ve worked with some of the nation’s top lifestyle brands to craft impactful strategies and engaging brand activations, and bring that experience, knowledge and best practices to your team.
“We’re really proud of our almost 20-year relationship with JK McKnight. At Red Bull, we believe in experiential marketing as a channel to connect and engage authentically and genuinely with our target audience. Experiences like the ones we've built with JK are at the heart of this successful strategy - introducing passionate fans in the right environment - is how we grow our brand. JK’s ability to create and collaborate on innovative experiential activations builds a bridge to new customer relationships."
:: Juan Lopez, General Manager, Red Bull North America