I learned that there needs to be better vetting of venues when selecting brand activation spots, otherwise it’s a waste of resources. I’m speaking from firsthand experience here as somebody who was the promo girl working the activations for two separate years of sleeman market tours, amid hundreds of other brand activations.
These campaigns had higher than usual production value on the uniforms and props. There were three of us staffed - two promo girls and one field manager man. This was also apart of a provincial tour, so overnight hotel stays for us staff were included. All together it was an expensive brand activation.
Unfortunately every venue we went to for these Sleeman activations were dead as a doorknob. A handful of people in the bar at each, quickly served by us when we first arrived, then for the next few hours we awkwardly made small talk with them while not being able to offer any more drinks due to compliance rules.
Moreover, the “experiential” part of This experiential activation was a “break the lock” activity. In reality, it was some app that they had on an iPad which we had inserted into a holder on the door that was supposed to look like a cell door from Alcatraz. So the idea was, we would bring guests up to stand at the door and try to break the lock code on this iPad. But in order for people to participate in this game, they had to do a whole email sign up on the iPad, which absolutely nobody wants to do. We had to actively talk people into signing up against their Will, and even then it was taking people a very long time to key in there information on this iPad, which completely interrupted the flow of people enjoying themselves. This was a clear example of something which somebody in marketing had thought was a clever, exciting, interactive idea, and way to collect customer information without actually thinking about the practical realities of executing this. Frankly, just bad experiential marketing.
We got a lot of negative feedback about it not being worthwhile to participate in the break the lock activation / provide their contact information because the only incentive was that they would be entered into the draw to win a trip to Alcatraz. In my experience, I have never seen a grand prize draw be a strong motivator in live experiential marketing activations because people just assume that it’s never going to happen. For a greater participation you’re better off doing something where there is a draw given out at every activation.