Direct Impact

Event marketing is hitting a high note in these low economic times by enabling marketers to stage effective, efficient promotions as an alternative to pricier media messages.

“Budgets are being tightened and companies don’t have the luxury of spending in the mass traditional space, and they want to make sure that what they spend is going to get impact,” says Laura Shuler, president of Jack Morton Worldwide-USA.

Evidence of that media migration is in the numbers. Event marketing and sponsorships were the largest branded entertainment category in 2007, according to the annual Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry Forecast, growing 12.2% to $19.18 billion, up from $17.1 billion the year before. Sports and entertainment events make up the majority of events in the category, followed by road shows and mobile marketing.

And in Promo’s Marketer Trends Study, event/experiential/tour marketing ranked second in terms of where firms spent the most promotional money in 2007. Direct mail was No. 1.

Many clients are consulting experiential agencies as a primary partner, Shuler says.

“It’s being recognized as a more sophisticated discipline by clients,” she says.

In some cases, technology can help. Marketers can track the impact of events by counting how many attendees are driven to a Web site, for example.

But sometimes the tech is a bit more movable. Many firms are making an indelible impression at events by using the Segway, that two-wheeled, single-person electric vehicle that’s still novel enough to be fun. Segways can display signage or video on their front 4-foot by 5-foot “shields.” Massive Media is among the agencies using fleets of the gizmos to give their events a certain gloss.

“In the case of Segways, the medium is almost the message,” says Beth Gottlieb, Massive Media’s national program director. “They’re a huge hit, particularly in dusk hours.”

The basic objective is to enable clients to open a dialogue, with most events enabling that with an online component.

“Events are a way to begin a relationship,” Shuler says. “You need to look at them as a piece in a much broader community-building effort with your customer base.”

Some events enable a “halo” effect as attendees share their experiences with as many as 50 acquaintances. A Jack Morton demonstration event for Samsung during Fashion Week last month in New York City centered on a retrospective exhibit of the work of designer Valentino Garavani. But guests of the weeklong exhibit were also watching video clips of an upcoming TV documentary about Valentino on the Samsung monitors, engaging an influential crowd of people whose opinions matter with their peers.

In terms of scale and reach, sports events are still in a league of their own in creating basic brand association. This year’s DHL All-Star FanFest, which drew more than 150,000 pro baseball die-hards to New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center, provided a compelling showcase for Chevrolet vehicles, as well as branded activities for a boatload of other sponsors.

The National Basketball Association has similarly created a growing menu of sponsored events for fans around its annual All-Star Weekend.

But the scale of its pre-season tours and fan events in Europe, boasting 23 sponsors last fall, and China, is helping to build a fan base overseas that put $430 million in the association’s merchandising coffers last year.

“This continues our goal to increase the fan base for basketball throughout Europe,” NBA Commissioner David Stern said earlier this year.

EA Sports is onboard again as presenting sponsor, with Coca-Cola, Adidas, Champion and Spalding also on the NBA’s pre-season All-Star marketing roster.