Delivering a full 360 brand experience: from on their phone to out of home

When it comes to the best comms campaigns, they’re almost always integrated. They often cross over the various touchpoints in a consumer’s world, using PR, social, experiential and OOH to offer multiple opportunities to experience the brand message.

But a truly great 360 brand experience should also surprise and delight. It should stop your audience in their tracks, engage, entertain and connect with them emotionally, generously, and forge a moment that lingers in their imagination.

The first step is to find your people. If you want to delight someone, you need to know what makes them tick: what they care about (and what they don’t), where they hang out, who and what they listen to, what they’re reading or watching, and how they spend their time. Armed with these insights, you can plan out a campaign that’ll take your message to them in a way that truly resonates.

And while it’s important to cut your coat according to your cloth, (or to put it another way, scale the campaign based on available budget), there are a number of elements to consider:

1. A real-world brand experience: your opportunity to bring your brand to life. Start from the point of view of your audience – what would they enjoy? Make it more than just an opportunity to look at your brand and give them something to do. This is an opportunity to be generous, as generous as you can afford to be.

That doesn’t have to mean non-stop freebies. Consider giveaways at certain times of day, or on the hour, or a limited number on a first-come-first-served basis to help create urgency. Food and drink are always welcome, but also think about things that your audience can keep, to create a lasting impression and social buzz.

Speaking of social buzz, an instagrammable moment should be built into the brief from the outset. This is a brilliant opportunity to get creative and devise something that appeals to your audience’s interests, rather than just sticking up a pretty branding board and hoping for the best. Make your audience look good and they’re more likely to share on their own socials.

And lastly on experiential, if you’re creating event moments – for instance, with talent – don’t shy away from some paid-for elements. Psychology shows that we all value something more if we’ve paid for it, so even if it’s a nominal fee, if you’re offering something of value, consider a ticket-buying option.

2. 360 influencer engagement: influencer content should never be separate from your PR it should be woven through every element of the campaign. Include their take on your story in the media relations, bring them along to the experiential activations and encourage them to invite their followers. Can they run a workshop to bring the online to the real world? Can you offer exclusive discount codes for their followers or affiliate programmes? Consider every touchpoint and see where they can add more value (and where you can add value for them).

3. Advertising localisation: not every brand has the kind of comms budget that allows for nationwide experiential activity AND advertising running concurrently, with an extensive influencer campaign and compelling PR. By localising, you can amplify your message with a particular segment of your audience, making it more likely that your message doesn’t go unnoticed.

All it takes is one clever and engaging poster to spark word of mouth on the socials of passers-by.  Running experiential? OOH ads in strategic locations in the area can point your audience in the right direction. Take the guerrilla marketing option and consider more surprising options: shop shutters, graffiti walls, banners or flyposting.

Going hyper-local, you can even design individual ads that spotlight local stockists, encouraging them to get in on the act and share your message on their socials, helping engage a wider audience. (NB – can you invite them to take part in the experiential too?)

4. Timings: good planning is essential. You want your ads to land at the same time as your earned coverage is landing in the press, as your influencer content is going live, and in time to drive awareness of your experiential. And keep in mind each component will have a significantly different lead time.

While it’s not the most fun element of putting a good campaign together, we’re nerdy for a good Gantt chart. Hitting deadlines is crucial to make sure your message is landing all together and creating maximum impact (and much like crossing things off a list, marking elements on the chart as complete can be extremely satisfying).

Ultimately the size and scale of a campaign can vary wildly, but start with your people. And remember, whatever your budget, you can make the right impact.