PARTICIPATORY MARKETING: Traditional agencies miss out on experience

Advertising, perhaps more than any other industry, is sensitive to new trends in communication, faddish or otherwise. Print, radio, TV, the internet and social media have all been successfully co-opted by mainstream agencies as the industry adapted to new mediums and platforms to stay relevant to brands. 

However, the latest buzzword, participatory marketing, may have caught agencies napping as brands have looked to smaller, more nimble and specialised companies to provide this relatively new means of communication with their audience. Indeed, given the slow response from traditional agencies, many brands are doing it in-house.  

Participatory marketing, also known as experiential or engagement marketing, involves brands creating unique ‘experiences’ that engage potential customers through either one-off events or more long-term strategies to build up a more involved relationship that has the potential to develop and tighten over time. Experiential marketing is, comparatively speaking, a high end phenomenon in Asia. Notable successes have included Diageo’s Johnnie Walker House in Shanghai, an immersive venue that offers selected high-end consumers experiences such as exclusive whisky tastings. 

James Thompson, regional chief marketing officer for Diageo, explains the key concept of the venue as being to “invite leaders to talk about their [various] fields”, then allow people to experience how whisky is made. 

Thompson says its important for Diageo to communicate the craft nature of whisky to develop brand loyalty and demand. The best examples are not geared around one-off initiatives, but are part of a strategy to encourage consumer participation. “What people used to call ‘events’ are much more immersive. The [key] part is to be always present. It’s not about a six-week burst.” 

Similarly, Alfred Dunhill has taken its ‘Home’ concept from its London base and established it in its flagship Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai stores, recreating aspects of the luxury British lifestyle. The Alfred Dunhill Home concept offers services beyond retail, including a barber, spa, humidor, a screening room and lounge bars. 

Whether it’s participatory or experiential, the multiplicity of names for this form of marketing has caused some confusion, but for Mike Amour, regional chief executive of Project Worldwide, the key to this form of marketing is “how you define it, rather than what you call it”. 

Amour stresses the engagement aspect, as he feels the term ‘participatory’ doesn’t have an active element. “If you want a relationship to work, even if we’re talking about a relationship with a loved one, you need to be actively engaged,” he says. Although this form of marketing is quite well established in the West, Amour believes that with the explosion of social and digital media in Asia, brands in the region need “to stop talking about themselves, and start listening and communicating”, and help take the audience from the old model of ‘watching and thinking’ to the new more deeply connected model of ‘feeling and doing’, which Amour believes is far more effective with today’s media-saturated audience and, crucially, longer lasting. 

Experiential companies have stolen a march on traditional agencies, Amour believes, as they have “grown up experiential”. 

Brands in Asia attracted to experiential marketing, but lacking strong internal teams, look to niche players like music-focused experiential company BrandBeat. Charlie Toller, director and founder of BrandBeat, says: “Mainstream agencies have not really made the most of the experiential opportunity anywhere — they have followed the market leaders.”

Toller believes the bigger agencies have not been successful in using their tried and trusted method with new platforms of throwing money at the problem and swallowing up smaller upstarts. “Experiential is not a commodity buy, which is the core business model of mainstream agencies, it requires a more integrated approach.” 

BrandBeat has found success in Asia pairing brands with the right influential local music acts. A recent project with British clothing brand Jack Wills involved putting on live rock music performances outside its flagship store and in more unorthodox places such as on board a junk. 

“Agencies are having to change and take on a more versatile approach,” says Toller. “A lot of the old rules have gone out the window and understanding digital and people’s lifestyles is more crucial than ever.”

Thompson sees the changing relationship between client and agency as a fundamental change in the sourcing of ideas. “The primacy of the idea is something we challenge agencies with all the time. New ideas can sometimes be from a PR agency, or a digital agency, or our own people. The ad agency is part of it, but not the king in the room by right anymore.”