How Word of Mouth Dramatically Impacts Your Experiential Cost Effectiveness

The Overlooked Impact of Experiential Marketing 

 As I've mentioned in other blogs about experiential marketing, IMI has long been a proponent of experiential marketing, it's one of the best ways to impact your existing and potential customers. However, one of the things that we've seen is that most marketers don't totally account for the impact of their activations beyond the event. 

Now with all the forms of social media and tracking, we can do a much better job of tracking that impact outside of the event, but that can also sometimes feel like that exposure is a bit forced.  But what if those impressions don’t cover all of the impact outside of the event.  

Why Experiential Impact Is Hard to Measure 

Experiential marketing is something that is usually not large enough to get noticed in any type of Market Mix Modelling, so sometimes it's hard to quantify its impact vs. traditional media to maintain or get budget. Marketing teams track event attendance, sample distribution, and immediate engagement, yet these metrics may capture only part of the true impact. 

When IMI measures an event, we talk to attendees a few weeks after the event to see what impact the event had on them. Do they recall going to the event, do they recall the activations at the event, how do they feel about the brand, and importantly did it change their behavior - did they purchase the brand? We then compare this to a matched control sample who are identical in every way except they did not go to the event. It's all very standard and the results are compared to the IMI Experiential database of thousands of event globally. 

The Discovery: How Word of Mouth Extends Reach 

The Unexpected Finding 

Well, as is always the case, sometimes errors happen and good things come out of it. 

As I had mentioned, normally we ask the control group we ask if they attended the event, and if they did, they are terminated and excluded from the control group. However, in this study, there was an error in the programming of the survey and those that had not been to the event were then asked if they were aware of the sampling activation at the event - this was not meant to happen. 

We were pleasantly surprised to find out that even though respondents had not gone to the event, there was still a good number of people that knew about the activation, because their friends had told them about it! And it had a positive impact on their attitudes and perceptions towards the brand. 

The Amplification Effect 

However, that was not the end of our surprise learning. We also asked those people who had learned about the activation from their friends if they told anyone about it, and to our surprise they had also shared the activation. 

Truly the power of word of mouth. From a base of attendees at the event, in the end the impact was nearly 10 times the number of actual people sampled! 

Real-World Example: Energy Drink Sampling Campaign 

The case study that revealed this insight involved an energy drink brand conducting a country-wide sampling campaign. The campaign reached 200,000 people directly through sampling activities. 

Traditional metrics would evaluate success based on these direct contacts plus any tracked social media engagement. However, when we applied our measurement approach, including the accidental discovery about word-of-mouth awareness. We found: 

• Direct sampling: 200,000 consumers engaged at events 

• Second-generation reach: ~1 Million friends and family who heard about the sampling from attendees of the original event, and then further shared with others. 

• Third-generation spread: 2.5 Million people who heard about it through second hand reach 

So from the initial event where the brand was excited to have put 200,000 cans into consumers hands, they actually impacted millions of consumers with their activation.   

Practical Applications for Your Experiential Campaigns 

To better capture your activation's true impact, consider these measurement practices: 

Ask about indirect exposure. Include questions about activation awareness even among non-attendees. This revealed our unexpected findings and can reveal yours. 

Track the conversation chain. Measure not just who heard about your activation, but whether they shared it with others, how they shared it, and to how many people.  This lets you optimize future activations, to help facilitate that sharing.   

Factor broader reach and impact into ROI calculations. When the impact can spread to 10 times the number of direct attendees, your ROI calculations change significantly – giving strong comparability to more traditional marketing channels. 

What This Means for Your Experiential ROI 

So what do we do with this knowledge?   

• First, the basics, you have to create a campaign that is strong, and memorable enough that people are going to want to tell their friends about it (Believe me, I understand that this is not as simple as I have just stated).  

• Once in field, ensure that you have some form of measurement in place that accounts for not only those you interact with, but also those outside of the event.   

• Calculate the ROI of your event on consumers, optimize and repeat.  

When you are looking for budget or you are showcasing the success of your activation, remember to take into account the impact that it can have outside of the event. 

Based on our experience measuring thousands of events over 25+ years, we've consistently seen this pattern of organic amplification through word of mouth. With 20,000+ campaigns measured across 250+ categories and 1,000+ brands in 20+ markets, IMI's methodology captures the full picture of experiential effectiveness. 

Ready to uncover the true ROI of your experiential campaigns? Contact IMI to discuss how our proven measurement methodologies can transform your understanding of campaign effectiveness. With 150+ partners in 45+ countries and five decades of experiential measurement expertise, we guarantee insights that drive better marketing decisions.