Experiential is today, without question, a thriving marketing channel with revenues in excess of £300 million from the top 30 agencies alone last year. The sector has made great strides in recent years to develop methods to prove ROI and continue to justify larger slices of integrated marketing budgets. As an agency that’s been specialising in Experiential for over 16 years, we're keen to discuss the often contentious subject of measurability.
When Experiential was emerging, campaigns were often measured retrospectively and potentially subjectively by the agency conducting the activity. Clearly clients weren’t going to accept this quality of evaluation for long. Today we use independent research agencies to evaluate our campaigns by the same measures as other channels - brand awareness, advocacy, perception, propensity to purchase etc. And if sales are the most tangible form of ROI, Experiential at point of purchase allows measurement of sales generated directly as a result of the Experiential activity.
As an agency at the forefront of researching Experiential, we've seen some impressive ROI from our campaigns over the years. A recent award winning experience of ours for Nestlé's Aero Hot Chocolate saw sales uplift figures of nearly 2000% with 64% of consumers that engaged with the experience going on to purchase the product - a phenomenal return.
However the industry still has some way to go to finally put the measurability debate to bed. Measurement on a campaign by campaign basis is not the answer. Clients, agencies and research practitioners must take a more strategic, long term view on effectiveness to really move the industry forward. Clients must invest more significant research budgets and the key players need to agree an industry standard ROI model that all agencies adhere to. Until that day the debate will continue.