Although Google and Zappos have never confirmed the partnership, the point remains the same: Joining forces with another organization can increase your brand’s exposure while potentially offsetting some of the costs and labor of staging an event. And though you certainly don’t have to start a fight to reap the rewards, sometimes a little friendly competition is a plus for both parties. Think of a high school sporting event—what is a football game if not a face-off between two different brands that provides a memorable experience for fans of both? 

What other events could you co-host with a nearby school or district? Would any companies in town be willing to donate supplies in exchange for free advertisement? Get out there and make some friends—or even frenemies—to set your next marketing experience up for success. 

Experiential marketing lesson #3: Encourage sharing.
We’ve all heard the phrase “sharing is caring,” but it’s overused because it’s true. We teach children to be generous by sharing their toys with their classmates, and we demonstrate kindness by donating canned goods to food banks. The European chocolate brand Milka bet on this kindness with their experiential marketing campaign “The Last Square,” in which the company sold incomplete chocolate bars to an unsuspecting public. Seems like a bad idea, right? But in place of those missing chocolate squares, the company engaged consumers with a choice: Contact us and we will deliver your missing chocolate to you or to someone else, free of charge. 

A large number of customers chose to share their chocolate with a friend, which increased the brand’s customer base and won it valuable (chocolate) brownie points for spreading good cheer. Milka’s campaign is a perfect real-world illustration of how your brand benefits when your audience shares good vibes with other people. The impact is even bigger when your audience shares online. 

Many of us had Barbie dolls growing up, but not many of us felt represented by the brand’s narrow selection of skin tones, hair textures and body types. When “Barbie” was released in 2023, Mattel not only banked on a nostalgic connection to its brand to drive audiences to the theater, but also invited new and disgruntled customers to see it. How? The company installed life-sized Barbie boxes at cinemas around the country that invited moviegoers to step inside and see themselves in the box, possibly for the first time. The brand launched an online “Barbie selfie generator” in tandem, allowing people to insert photos of themselves in the roles of Barbie and Ken against backdrops from the film. 

People appreciated the sentiment and shared their Barbie selfies on social media platforms, using the hashtag #Barbie. Those shares drove more people to the theater to see the movie and to take their own selfies. (While we’re on the subject, a selfie station is an affordable and reliable option for encouraging the public to post about an experience.) 

Online shares reach a larger audience and word spreads faster than in real life, so don’t neglect to devise a digital strategy at the same time you plan your event. As you’re planning your school dance, for example, why not create a prom hashtag? Doing so makes social media chatter about your event easier to track and encourages your audience members to interact with one another. 

Experiential marketing lesson #4: Think beyond IRL.
Not all experiential marketing experiences are event-based—take Milka’s “The Last Square” campaign—and in fact, they don’t even have to take place in the real world. When Benefit Cosmetics launched its new Magnet Extreme Lengthening Mascara, it faced a very big obstacle in promoting it: the pandemic. Traditionally, consumers like to test makeup products before they buy, which created a challenge because most retail locations were closed at the time. 

To draw attention to its new product, Benefit hatched an immersive experience in which users could collect tokens and exchange them for discounts on online purchases, free mascara samples or virtual beauty consultations. Once users signed into Benefit’s platform, they were asked to share their location. Next, thanks to augmented reality, “gamers” could use their phones to find those tokens in the real world. 

While using virtual reality as a tool is probably out of reach for most schools and districts, you can still gamify an online experience by creating contests and challenges. Remember when everyone started dumping ice buckets on their heads for ALS? It was successful because a) people liked challenging themselves, b) it was fun to see friends and celebrities squeal in shock when they got iced, and c) it was for a good cause! Can you think of a similar challenge that could gamify fundraising for new art supplies? 

You can also engage your online audience with interactive polls on Instagram or TikTok to make them active viewers of your content. Ask students to vote on their favorite food and serve the winning dish at lunch Friday. However you go about it, let your followers interact with your school or district in a fun way—because fun is a good impression for people to have and spread about your brand. 

Experiential marketing lesson #5: Let people express themselves.
When was the last time you sat down to create something with your hands? American Greetings asked consumers the same question, and the answer was, “Not in a long time.” In 2016, the company invited SXSW attendees to #analog with them, providing a space for people to take a break from their busy days to craft. They also invited people to fill in a page of their “coloring book mural,” a big collaborative work of art that gave people a sense of accomplishment when they saw the finished product. Furthermore, photos of the mural were posted online inviting contributors to tag themselves. 

Lean Cuisine provided another opportunity for customers to express themselves with its #WeighThis campaign. Once the most popular brand in the grocery freezer aisle, Lean Cuisine’s reputation began to lag as public opinion about dieting and weight loss changed. Female consumers felt they were valued more for their physical appearance than their accomplishments, so Lean Cuisine provided a space for women to write what they were most proud of—a gallery of writing boards that looked like scales in New York City’s Grand Central Station. Their responses included being a combat veteran, surviving brain surgery and helping children with autism. 

A brand that was once a symbol of 1980s diet culture gave women an opportunity to publicly reject dieting and recorded it on video to share with a wider audience. It might seem like a risky move, but the video campaign led to a 33% increase in positive brand perception. You don’t have to rent out Grand Central Station to give your stakeholders a voice—but you can incorporate similar exercises into pre-existing events. On back-to-school night, for instance, maybe you could ask students and parents to write what they’re most excited about for the new school year and display their answers—both at school and online. 

Experiential marketing lesson #6: Do a test run.
If you’re planning a brand-new experience or you’re incorporating challenging new elements into an existing event, it’s important to think about Murphy’s Law: Assume anything that can go wrong will go wrong. IBM forgot the adage when it used biodegradable chalk stencils to write slogans advertising the Linux operating system on sidewalks and walls across San Francisco. Unfortunately, the drawings didn’t wash off, and the city ordered IBM to pay a $100,000 fine and about $20,000 in clean-up costs. If IBM had simply spot-tested the chalk on a small area of private property, it would have avoided this whole mess. 

But if you think paying a big fine is bad, consider how you would feel if you seriously injured members of your audience. Jägermeister, a German liqueur brand, did just that when it hosted a pool party in Mexico in 2013. The organizers poured liquid nitrogen into the pool to create fog, not realizing the element becomes toxic to humans when combined with chlorine. Nine partygoers had to be taken to the hospital, and needless to say, the Jägermeister brand took a big hit for it. 

The takeaway? If you hold a school movie night, test the projector before the big night. If you host a haunted house, do a walk-through to make sure any special effects are safe. You shouldn’t leave important details up to chance, especially where health and safety is concerned. 

Let’s not beat around the bush: Experiential marketing takes a lot of time, effort and coordination. While we know you don’t have the same resources as Fortune 500 companies, you can still learn from their wins and losses to engage your stakeholders in a more meaningful and memorable way—one that will strengthen their connection to your brand and create new ones. Trust us, it’s worth it.