Experiential Marketing by Shirra Smilan highlights a shift in marketing towards two-way communication with prospects. The author shares trends such as the following:

“When used on a large scale, traditional advertising can have a low cost per thousand, but overall it can be a very expensive tool, one traditionally effective for market-leading brands that can afford to run very large-scale awareness campaigns. However, since the rise of programmatic, digital advertising, and the ability for laser-sharp targeting and personalisation, this is changing…Facebook provides such such audience-targeting options that it is often a great tool for driving localised event registrations using its geo-targeting capabilities, and can prove extremely lucrative in marketing strategy.”

Understanding these trends, the book progresses to share strategies to adapt and leverage them including connecting authentically in a way that adds value to the consumer’s life.

”Two-way communication and interactive engagement are the keys to creating memorable experiences that drive word of mouth, and transform consumers (and trade/ media/ employees/ other stakeholders) into brand advocates and brand evangelists.”

Up to this point, I found the book insightful and agreed with the new approach to marketing. Regularly, in our marketing consultancy, we are seeing these changes coming into play and the success of personalised experiences and brand advocates as well as social media.

The book then moves onto explain the tactics to execute experiential marketing and this is where I battled with it. The suggestions are designed for large companies with accompanying large budgets. Reading with my small to medium sized, entrepreneurial clients in mind, I can’t see putting this plans into actions. About 50% of the book is dedicated to explaining, in step-by-step form, how to creating amazing experiential marketing.

The book is well-written, and if your budgets allow, this book may be a great read for you. For me, it’s a three out of five on the en-JOY-ment scale, I enjoyed the trending and fresh approach but it lacked in application for me.