Valuing creativity makes a marked difference in marketing success. We often hear about “creativity, fun & memorable”, especially in the term of marketing. So, the question now is: what should we do to create a “successful” event?
◎ 6SENSE / 黄静仪 Wong Cheng Yee
Before we jump into the strategies and tactics for creating an innovative marketing event, let’s first look at the important things to consider when using the marketing idea.
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Know what your customers care about
Branding is to create an identifiable name, symbol or design as belonging to the company. It allows your customers to know what to expect from your company. Customers tend to purchase the products when the brand is matched with their expectations. For example, customers who value Instagram exposure will hit the restaurant which serves incredible foods that is Instagram Worthy. It’s no point to give your customers an apple when they are asking for oranges.
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Ask yourself “Why should customers choose you?”
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” That quote comes from Simon Sinek, author of the book, Start with Why. This quote makes me think about the different reasons why a customer chooses to do business with a company.
Is it because your company provides a competitive price? Better customer service? More convenience location/method in purchasing products? More trustable? Better reputation? A relatable culture? Do you realize that the keyword of this section is: Competitive advantage. There are plenty of considerations for a customer to make their final decision. What you should do is, do not focus on what you sell, but focus on why should the customer choose you over your competitors. Identify what is your competitive advantage, make sure it applies to your promotion campaign.
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Predict the potential problems of the promotion campaign
After presenting an innovative idea, of course, we will be excited and look forward to the success of the event. However, the most important thing should be done here is to predict and solve the potential problems. We should brainstorm for the potential problems and discuss the solutions, a completed plan should be analyzed to mitigate the disastrous mistakes. Sometimes, no matter how well organized or planned an event is, things go wrong. For example, raining weather, the struggle of interacting with customers due to low participative. We should always come out Plan B, plan C or even plan D, E, F in advance. For example, get umbrellas standby for an outdoor event’s guests.
An awesome practical example – Pre Tea Q “The Proud Pound” is provided here to give you a clearer understanding.
A short introduction of Pre Tea Q. Pre Tea Q is a Taiwanese restaurant with the signature yam series bubble tea and dessert. They successfully recognize their customers with the characteristics, behavior, and traits as customers who consume bubble tea and dessert are less concerned about health care and crave for relaxing experience. With the clear recognition of their target customers, they came out with a creative campaign – “The Proud Pound” to catch customer’s eyes. The Proud Pound with the concept of “Your weight (in kg) is equal to the percentage of discount you will gain’, it goes against the trend of preferring slim and encouraging weight loss, but it gained a big success of the event.
Firstly, it is matched with the brand image, bubble milk tea, and dessert restaurant with fun, creative and interactive experience. It also matches with the customer wants and expectation, most of the customer is less concern about weight loss when they decided to consume bubble tea and dessert, as we know, high-calorie foods. When the weight became an advantage of them to get a discount, it turned them on.
Next, this campaign provided a competitive price and fun experience. You can get a free drink if you’re 100kg or above. Free drink? 100kg? You will tag the first person you think of and discussion about when to hit the restaurant. The interactive campaign created a chance for the customer to hang up with friends and family through cheaper prices given and no other effort needed.
Furthermore, the campaign is easy to be controlled as the customer is only required to step on the weight scale and the staff will give the discount accordingly. There is no huge potential problem that should be worried about.
Follow the formulation of “value + benefits given + control = successful campaign”, you will soon create a creative campaign to stand out in this crowded world.
