Profile: The ambassadors of experiential
By Simon Fuller. BEing BEcause. Experiential marketing’s on the menu at many agencies, but few can claim a sector specialisation in quite the same way as London’s Because. With a small army of brand ambassadors, some of whom work exclusively for BEcause, the company has picked up big name clients, among them Heineken, adidas, Superdrug and the RAF.
“What makes us different is experience in what we do,” says BEcause’s business director, Karen Evans. “With Heineken [for example], we involved three and a half million people – we ran over 30,000 events for them. We have that scale of activity, the ground delivery… and high standards in implementation.
“Experiential marketing is our specialization. The live activation is at the heart of our campaigns – we focus on live activation, and bring [the campaigns] to life through other forms too. We know what works in the field, the technicalities. You can have the best idea but if it’s not delivered on the ground, an idea won’t work. So we have great ideas that are practical too.”
BEcause’s campaigns can often combine more traditional elements, such as product sampling, with more entertaining or quirky solutions, as seen in the experiential campaign BEcause ran for Innocent smoothie drinks, Big January. BEcause set up a theatrical set – complete with grass and a picnic setting – at busy train stations and shopping centres, not only allowing consumers to try the product, but also educating them on the benefits of choosing one of Innocent’s drinks over other brands of fruit drink. It was on the latter task that BEcause’s well-picked ambassadors came in handy.
“[They]… ensure ground delivery,” says Evans. “The way we recruit, it’s an ongoing recruitment, we hold assessment style days, we profile our brand ambassadors, so we know what makes a good brand ambassador – for example, social boldness, self motivation. We’ve got interesting stuff out of these profiles and all ambassadors go through this [process]. And we continue the assessment, so we have things like mystery shoppers [to test them]. So we treat our field staff as you’d treat staff in an office.
“Some ambassadors are exclusive to BEcause – they like to work with us, and they understand our campaigns. But we can provide a wider pool of people, should we need to deliver [lots of ambassadors] for a campaign.”
And it’s through this ambassador-to-consumer communication that BEcause’s campaigns achieve one of the big benefits of experiential marketing – shifting consumer perceptions of a brand.
“The fact that we’re having a conversation [with consumers] means our ambassadors can use their influencing skills, tailored to the person and the situation,” says Evans. “Our ambassadors are trained to deliver a brand’s message, but also can help consumers re-evaluate a perception of a brand, or break a habit. There’s lots we can do in terms of the one-to-one conversation. We can tailor our work and make that conversation relevant… [that’s the] key to changing brand perceptions. You can’t do that with a leaflet.”
