If you’ve been to a seminar or cocktail party lately, you know the buzzword du jour is “experiential marketing.” In this issue, managing editor Dan Hanover looks at whether The Experience is the future of all marketing interaction. Coke’s got them dancing at Turner Field in Atlanta, and gives impromptu street massages while sampling Dasani water. Verizon, the former Bell Atlantic, hosts luge competitions. From Bud World to the Lincoln American Luxury Immersion, brands are spending big bucks to spend quality time with consumers.
We’re using this trend piece to kick off our own Experience, a regular series that puts PROMO editors in the audience. That vantage point will let us – and, therefore, you – see the business from a consumer’s perspective at the scene and a field marketer’s perspective behind the scenes. Plus, it’ll get our editorial staff out of the office once in a while. (We can’t promise the same for you.)
Marketers also are finding new ways to get to a long-favored destination: Inside consumers’ minds. Senior editor Betsy Spethmann looks at the buzz over online trend tracking, the newest wave in marketing research. Savvy sites are using everything from teen chat rooms to customer complaints to take the consumer pulse on hot topics, then sell those insights to marketers.
Elsewhere this month, our annual look at cause marketing examines child welfare and education-driven campaigns. Nearly half the companies involved in charity tie-ins fund causes for kids, and we talk to a range of marketers, from Sports Authority and People to Campbell Soup Co. and Hasbro, about their school days. Plus, our annual rundown of cause-marketing opportunities offers more than 70 potential programs from which to choose.
And if you’re considering a film or TV tie-in, make our Entertainment Properties Preview your first stop. A synopsis of 75 upcoming releases could make your initial shopping a little easier. And be sure to catch our piece in Marketers on chief executives who play along with their brands’ promotions.
Then try calling your boss to see if he’s interested.
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