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Tuesday 8 March 2016

Sell Me An Experience

The Keg Mansion, sold the haunted experience

Last year for Christmas, my boyfriend and I decided to book a hotel and go to Toronto for the weekend, instead of buying each other presents. We went to the Keg Mansion with his family, Ripley’s Aquarium, on a Steam Whistle Brewery tour and to a board-game café. Why did we do this, you might ask? We wanted to share new experiences together, instead of getting each other gifts that didn’t really mean anything.

Ripley's Aquarium, an underwater experience

Another great way to market to millennials is through experience, or in other words, experiential marketing. Creative Guerilla Marketing defines experiential marketing as a form of marketing that focuses on helping the consumer experience the brand. They also said that it is used to form a memorable and emotional connection between the consumer and the brand so that it generates customer loyalty and influences the purchase decision.

Experience Toronto in a beer
Experiential marketing can be anything from free sampling, to full out guerilla-marketing stunts. An experiential marketing campaign that quickly comes to mind for me, is Red Bull. Red Bull ‘gives you wings’ and it gives you a unique experience. Another example is the launch of Tim Horton’s Dark Roast coffee, where they completely blacked out one of their locations. Consumers got to go inside, in the complete dark, and experience the new flavour with their senses of taste and smell heightened.


As millennials, we are more interested in buying in on an experience, than the product or service itself. How many times have you wanted to go to Harvey’s and create your own personalized burger? I know I have, because it’s not just a hamburger, it’s an experience. The Store Front Blog states that experiences, especially shared experiences, are what connect millennials as humans. Building an experience to go with your product or service allows us to build a relationship with you.

12 comments:

  1. I like the idea of buying an experience. It applies to many of the things I go for without even thinking about it. For example, I'll go see a movie at the theatre instead of just downloading it because of the experience of the theatre.

    Also, have to add that I loved Ripley's. It's my new favourite place in Toronto.

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  2. The experiential marketing is a very interesting idea what I got to know. After reading your post, I just think I might have similar experiences before, but I did not realized this is also a good way to promote bands and products. Now, I can understand this is a good marketing way for products by increasing consumers' emotions and experiences.

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    1. Hi Tiffany,

      There are many new and exciting things that marketing has to offer that you might not know about- you should check out my marketing resource blogs!

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  3. I'm big into the experience side of things. Especially when it comes to alcohol. I enjoy the brewery tours.

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  4. I have experienced experiential marketing from a very early age. Remember tasting different food samples while shopping with my parents. I think experiential marketing is definitely decent way of promoting ones goods and services.

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  5. This year for Christmas me and my boyfriend did the same thing. I think marketing experiences is a very smart decision. I would love to hear what you thought of the board-game café because I am dying to go to one.

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  6. This is so true! I feel there has been a huge increase in music festivals lately because of just this! Like Tiffany mentioned, its so easy not to realize you're being marketed to when you are enjoying a great experience!

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  7. I completely agree with you, companies are trying to sell experience which attract customers who are looking for more personalized experinece or products. I think this is a very smart and effective marketing as we millennials want to feel more connected to the companies we support.

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  8. I completely agree with you on selling an experience. it plays big factor in any business to gain loyal customers/clients. I remember reading about Steve Jobs somewhere and he said "Apple is all about user experience, Once a Apple user will always be a Apple user". And I really like your blog title.

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  9. It was really fascinating to read this post.I really feel that selling an experience is a very important part of marketing as it builds people interest in the brand.

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  10. I agree with selling the experience, let me connect our blogs with the post, if it make sense, we are sharing our experiences through these blogs that means we are writing blogs to get hired by the potential employers. In other words we are selling our experiences to get hired.
    Thanks for sharing this.

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