When I was recapping a short-term experiential marketing program, I decided to add more substance to the impact variables by comparing them across industries. It sounds like this would take several hours of work – and it did. Luckily this is something PortMA has been working on for some time.
Over the past few years, PortMA has been compiling all the data from consumer interviews to build a benchmarking database for future studies. One of the results is a benchmark scale for future purchase intent.
In the context of the program under review, the future purchase intent and recommend intent were on the high end of the benchmarking scale. My initial thought was that the experiential program was very successful at generating purchase intent for the brand in comparison to other programs, but I wanted to preface that with the fact that this was a short-term program.
l would prefer to see how this program performs on a long-term basis at generating purchase intent before drawing a definitive conclusion. As more consumer interviews are completed, variation in purchase intent should slow down, at least to some degree, so it will be easier to conclude how well the program is generating purchase intent relative to other programs.
The benchmarks are useful for helping measure program success, because not only are they useful for comparison, but they provide a goal for the program to reach from in its early stages so that PortMA can work together with the client early on to help them get the most out of the program.
Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/springfieldhomer/60746339/