When you conduct experiential marketing research on similar programs, it’s easy to assume that the program goals of one program are the same as the goals of another, but that’s not necessarily true. Although we almost universally measure brand awareness, future purchase intent, and future recommend intent across program to measure impact on consumer attitude and behavior, these metrics don’t explain as much as we’d like if we don’t understand the goals of each individual program.
Part of the process of launching a new experiential program is asking important questions such as “what is the client trying to learn from this beyond the standard metrics?” Perhaps the goal is to identify new demographic segments to reach or find markets with greater opportunities to attract new customers than where they have marketed in the past. You don’t know for sure unless you take the time to learn as much as you can about the program you’re launching.
Recently, I developed a program launch for a brand in the spirits industry that was originally planned to be very similar to a program we’re currently running, so I used the current program as a basis for my planning to start. However, I was challenged to go beyond basing new program goals on previous programs by asking what the overall goals of the program are. What I learned is that the brand is looking to create a unique identity to distinguish itself from its competitors that have a larger share of the market, which we can measure by asking specific questions related to achieving that goal.
These unique metrics allow us to show in our reporting how well the program is working toward these specific goals on which the client can take action toward achieving.
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