Live Brand Experiences: Online and Offline
Digital Amplification / Digital Live Brand Experiences
By Shaz Smilansky

Wonderbra implemented a highly talked about experiential marketing campaign, where real women with cup size D to G sent photos of themselves in their bras, all the photos combined to create a broader image, this was both an interactive digital feature where, when any spot of the montage was clicked on, the relevant girly bra photo appeared and the combined montage was used as the creative for a billboard campaign.  The launch of the billboard was accompanied by a host of real women parading in their undies. The binding theme between these three examples is that the traditional channels that are used to expand the reach of the campaign are designed to amplify the live brand experience, which plays a crucial strategic part of the integrated campaign.

Live brand experiences do not have to be executed in a strictly ‘face-to-face’ capacity, often a fashion brands website provides the most relevant live brand experience of all, bringing the target audience closer to the designer and their aspirational lifestyle.  A great example is www.DVF.com, the home of fashions print queen; Diane Von Furstenberg and a brilliant example of how to bring a fashion brand to life, engage the consumer and involve them in the brand journey.  Her brilliant and highly acclaimed DVF diary is a fantastic ode to how creating branded content (the diary features press clips, high profile liaisons, pictures and details of Diane’s fashionista lifestyle adventures) exemplifies the brand communication with its advocates drawing them closer and solidifying their relationship with DVF.  

Once decided that an experiential strategy is suitable for your brand, it is crucial to work with the right agency in order to benefit from the right expertise in the creative planning, the activation and the evaluation stages, an experiential marketing specialist is ideal. Shaz Smilansky, author of the book Experiential Marketing and of this article is Marketing Director at Blazinstar Experiential who are based in Farringdon, London and offer extensive experiential marketing planning, completely free of charge, their clients have included Calvin Klein, BA, ITV, T-Mobile and more. They can be contacted via their website on www.blazinstar.co.uk

In summary, by integrating amplification channels, the live brand experience becomes more than an event, it becomes the inspiration for the creative that forms the inspiration for the complete integrated experiential marketing campaign, and strategically this can work wonders to engage with your target audience whether they are mass market shoppers or a select group of key influencers from the industry.