Hope
The Meeting & Event industry is finally beginning to see a ray of hope. The past year tested the adaptability and ingenuity of every player: third-party agencies, internal corporate event teams, freelance Meeting Professionals, and everyone in between. Live events became virtual overnight, and now we are witnessing the move from virtual to the ‘hub and spoke’ hybrid event. Timelines are still fraught, and clearly, no individual or industry segment is out of the woods yet. Meeting and event stakeholders are looking for that suspension bridge back to the live experience. Beneath the umbrella of experiential marketing resides Mobile Marketing, which is evolving into that missing link between Zoom fatigue and face-to-face customer engagement.
"While we've seen Mobile Marketing's impact over the years as a portable, outdoor meeting format, now more than ever these events are helping to bridge the gap as we gradually migrate back toward a safe, live environment." —
Michael Schaumann, HMCC, Business Development Director
Engagement
We’re all familiar with the efficacy and room for creativity intrinsic to experiential marketing; an entire channel of marketing that involves any face-to-face or offline effort to raise brand awareness, create and nurture business opportunities and develop long-term customer loyalty. We each have our indelible memories of experiential designs which speak to the impact of such an approach. From Escape Rooms to 3D printed Oreos, few marketing angles hit home with the same resonance as a real-time experiential environment. Conventions and trade shows have come a long way from the days of occupying a 10x10 booth on your feet all day and we can thank experiential marketing for changing the game. We are still months away from large conferences and the ability to all be in the same room at the same time... this is where Mobile Marketing provides a segue.
Proof
In the late 1990s, Cisco became an early adopter of the Mobile Marketing technique. To efficiently educate its hardware customers on college and university campuses, Cisco created vehicular experiential marketing environments in the form of semi-trailer trucks and vans, each appropriated according to the scale of each event. Not unlike a Transformer, these vehicles would effectively park and morph into sensory-focused environments whereupon attendees walked through, touched and felt products as if on a showroom floor. Continued success and unforeseen customer impact prompted the technology giant to double-down on the number of these movable meeting spaces on the road and their usage continues unabated twenty years on.
Six Feet Apart
As with other industries, Mobile Marketing developed a unique niche in Life Science marketing while solving a few more problems simultaneously. Mobile Marketing tours hosted by pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies allow physicians, HCPs, and consumers to experience a brand and product captivating all senses, enabling long-lasting impressions. The life cycle of a specific drug or indication may be walked through, literally, by those afflicted, transforming clinical trials and patient programs into programmatic demonstrations of one’s journey. Mock Operating Rooms have been created (within mobile platforms) for healthcare practitioners and patients alike to best convey the human element involved along the way. What’s more, the pandemic has put a cease and desist upon doctors’ office visits for pharmaceutical reps, and roving Mobile Marketing units, often parked in COVID-19 conscious lots, have bridged the gap.
The ability to scale from 18-Wheeler to modest vans has proven vital to B2B business as physical interaction inside rooms and offices has been temporarily rendered obsolete. One traditional example of Mobile Marketing within the Life Science landscape has long been that of the Medical Science Liaison. Portable educational marketing units in the form of vehicles supplanted the costs of flights and lodging. We’re finding ways to make up for lost time and lost space.
%
of respondents consider experiential events the most effective ways to attract and sustain customers. (Agency EA)
%
of consumers are more likely to buy a new product if they can try it first. (Marketing Week)
%
of consumers are likely to buy after participating in experiential events. (Event Marketer)
The Mother of Invention
It’s high time to strategize. What mode of marketing can best bridge the gap and bring us closer together while six feet apart in the open air? There are many ideas, proposals and conceptions. We need to work together and tie the virtual, the hybrid, and live together again in ways we’ve seen but not propagated. Mobile Marketing seethes brand but permits open space and COVID-19 cognizance while not trivializing that non-negotiable human touch. We are all anxious to get business back on track and Mobile Marketing might light the way.
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MGME Mobile Marketing
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