On Thursday afternoon our office in NYC was serenaded by the sounds of strangers singing karaoke in Union Square Park. When we went outside to check it out, we found an interactive experience courtesy of Listerine.
This bold event highlighted how a live experience could be successful by being interactive, visual and shareable.
You could try out some Listerine mouth wash…
Or, you could perform karaoke or do a dance in front of one of Listerine’s colorful backdrops. Don’t mind if we do…
And perhaps most exciting, you could listen to a live performance by rapper Biz Markie. And with that, ‘you got what I need’ for a perfect lunch break experience.
The day was packed with a number of interactive experiences that fit with Listerine’s campaign slogan, #BringOutTheBold, and every part was inherently visual and shareable. Those backdrops don’t just invite you to sing a song or bust a move. They beg you to take your picture in front of them. Which, obviously, we did.
Apparently @Listerine users are likely to perform a dance and our @photoshelter team has the moves! #BringOutTheBold pic.twitter.com/C7eXAgwZ53
— Libris (@getlibris) April 14, 2016
But better yet, when we shared our team’s photo on Twitter, Listerine engaged with us in real time:
@getlibris @photoshelter they clearly do! You guys #BringOutTheBold
— Listerine US (@Listerine) April 14, 2016
So not only did I get a personal experience with the brand in Union Square, I also got to interact with the brand online. This is powerful marketing for Listerine, because research shows that people are more likely to become regular customers after engaging with a brand at an event. At the same time, Listerine benefits from the content I share from the event with my online network.
Consider the fact that everyone had their phones pointed at Biz Markie when he took center stage:
This scene is inherently social. All of these people who were surprised and delighted by a free Biz Markie show in the middle of their lunch break wanted to share their excitement with their friends on social media. The event affected only so many people in person, but had a ripple effect online. This organic word of mouth publicity highlights the potential return on investment live experiences can have for your brand. I was in Biz Markie’s Instagram photo. This is a fact I need to tell everyone I know, immediately, which is exactly what Listerine wants me to do.
Bonus, Listerine used one strong hashtag (#BringOutTheBold, which was reinforced on all of the backdrops and materials at the event) and created a Snapchat filter to ensure that even the user generated content shared from the event was branded. This tweet is a fantastic example, shared by one of the many social influencers (all known for bold, unique reasons, like being in the cast of Kinky Boots or running a popular bow tie business at age 14) who partnered with Listerine and participated in the Union Square event:
I sang dancing queens with @robertpendilla @mia_gentile, and @ellynmarsh #BringOutTheBold wish I had a video of it. pic.twitter.com/igzhbEoTwx
— Joy Rosenthal (@Broadway_Wiz) April 14, 2016
Plus, the live experience isn’t a one-off. It is integrated into a broader #BringOutTheBold campaign. Listerine shared this image to promote the event on Twitter:
Are New Yorkers as bold as LISTERINE® users? We’ll find out.
How do you #BringOutTheBold? pic.twitter.com/NjhI5vK905
— Listerine US (@Listerine) April 12, 2016
The brand is also promoting #BringOutTheBold by sharing photos and videos across social platforms. The messaging of the live experience fits seamlessly with the overall campaign.
The Takeaway
A live experience has huge potential to generate buzz for your brand, and the #BringOutTheBold experience follows a recipe for success. For it to work, your live experience must be inherently visual. If people are taking photos and videos, they’ll want to share them on social media. You must also have a team ready to engage with fans online in real time, to reinforce the personal connection they got with your brand by attending the event (and to do that in front of their social networks). And, you must have a solid hashtag to make sure your team sees the content. Better yet, if you have a strategy for reaching out to participants to secure rights to photos and an easy way for them to submit those photos to your brand’s image library, you can use live events as an opportunity to source user generated content. The key is to focus on the big picture, and to remember that a visual, social live experience can draw a limited crowd in person, and an exponentially larger crowd online.
Photos by Kristin Twiford.
