Tag Archive for: experiential marketing

Virtual reality — the future for brand-to-consumer storytelling?

Virtual reality, a fairly new thing for most, is a 3D reality of an environment that imitates physical presence in places that exist elsewhere in the world or in an imaginary place. Mostly known as a new platform for video games, virtual realities are also becoming very popular in marketing and journalism, with the potential to be the new form of storytelling. You can experience virtual realities with a pair of Oculus glasses or with something as simple as a Google Cardboard. With this technology, you can watch videos to see, connect and experience life elsewhere in the world on a completely different level.

Can you imagine what life is like as a nine-year-old in South Sudan, displaced by warfare? Well, now you can – thanks to the New York Times Virtual Reality app, which shares the stories of three children in eastern Ukraine, Syria and South Sudan.

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Can you imagine what the life of a ballerina is like? Or what about an experiential virtual reality where you walk into a store, try on a winter jacket and take a quick trip to the South Pole? A North Face store in South Korea created a virtual experience for its shoppers to experience what it would be like to wear the jacket on a dog sledding ride.

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With these novel uses of a just-as-novel technology, consumers have the opportunity to be completely transported. If advertising can pull at the heartstrings, virtual realities can impose more literal experiences – be they emotional, tactile, or the like – on people. Point of purchase tactics have immense potential for growth with VR, as do activations and other brand-to-consumer interactions, something we specialize in here at CBC. With North Face exemplifying the trend of brands using technologies to engage on closer, more intimate levels with consumers, we’re eager (and, honestly, a little wary!) to see what’s to come.

Boston PR Agency CerconeBrownCompany Introduces The Fall House

As an extension of the Boston PR agency‘s experiential marketing programs (The Summer House, The Winter House, The Green House and The Cooking Experience, to name a few), CBC is adding a new program to its line-up: The Fall House. Scheduled to be held Oct. 8-22, 2011 in Santa Barbara, Calif., The Fall House will feature new activities geared specifically toward engaging West Coast-based press with companies and their products.

The CBC team is beginning the initial stages of the program, securing the event location (a gorgeous home near Santa Barbara beach) and signing on brand sponsors.

The Fall House in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The Santa Barbara beach

The Santa Barbara beach

To become a sponsor for The Fall House, contact Noelle Guerin at nguerin@cerconebrown.com for details.

Gearing up for another CerconeBrownCompany Experiential Marketing Program: Park City Here We Come!

As we gear up for CerconeBrownCompany’s fifth annual Winter House program, feelings of excitement and anxiousness all mix into one as we prepare to head on out and set up in our temporary home of The Canyons Resort in Park City for the next few weeks.

Similar to years past, the weeks leading up to it can be maddening, often leaving you to wonder how everything will come together, with the only reassurance being that you know somehow it will all work out (it always does, right?).

Heading into its fifth year, the experiential marketing program is designed to gather top media from around the country to escape the daily chaos of their lives in New York City, Los Angeles, or wherever they may be, letting them step away from their computers, Blackberries and iPads and live amongst, experience and review brands and products without distractions in their natural and intended settings – hence the “Winter House” theme and experience.

Similar to CBC’s Summer House and Green House, the two-week Winter House program is broken down into four different three-day sessions where we play host to groups of four to six media members at a time. Daily schedules for this year’s program are packed – filled with activities ranging from testing out Lolë’s latest apparel out on the ski slopes to putting together a fashion show competition incorporating the newest trends and designs from fashion footwear company, NAYA.

Other activities include experiencing New Balance’s newest running technology in action during a session at the gym, snowshoeing Park City’s back country in EarthTec’s 2011 outdoor apparel line, trekking through the village for a winter hike to feel BOGS’ comfort, insulation and functionality first hand, and a wine-pairing dinner with some of Wente’s most memorable wines.  Pepperidge Farm, adidas eyewear, ICON, Tribe Hummus, and Veggie Patch are some of the other brands that will be featured at this year’s Winter House.

Our group of attending media this year is one of the strongest groups the program has ever seen.  In fact, the program became so popular among press members that we had to setup a “wait-list” for media members, as the program reached capacity just two days after invitations were sent out.  Our 2011 media attendees include: O, the Oprah Magazine, People, Real Simple, Outside Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Men’s Health, Prevention, The Food Network, American Spa, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Delta Sky, Snow, Marie Claire, Fitness, Esquire, SELF, The New York Times, ESPN, Women’s Health, SHAPE, Good Morning America, The Huffington Post, and more!

One of the things I personally love about our experiential marketing programs, and Winter House in particular, is seeing the media become fully immersed in a brand and getting to that “aha” moment.  For example, it’s one thing to sit on a media tour in NYC and show a member of the press a ski jacket, talking them through the technology and design, but it’s another thing to watch that same editor wearing that exact jacket during a run in fresh tracks down the mountain in Park City and seeing them truly understand why the seams were made that way and the pockets were constructed with that layout, and how breathable and functional the jacket is, because they are experiencing it first hand and in the conditions that it’s meant to be experienced in.  This type of experience is invaluable for a brand and key to making their product stick out amongst competitors to the media.

With less than two weeks until the program’s official kickoff, we’ll be working at our Boston PR agency to wrap up all of our available sponsorship categories, finalize logistics for each participating brands’ activity and role at the program, confirm editor travel schedules, and, of course, deal with any type of last minute fire drills that we may encounter before we head out West to set up shop and begin preparations in time for the first session’s arrival on January 16.

For those of you who’d like to tune in to see how this year’s program turns out, we’ll be tweeting and Facebooking live from the program with updates, photos and more, so be sure to follow @CerconeBrown on Twitter and “like” the CerconeBrownCompany Facebook page.  In the meantime, we’re looking forward to another successful Winter House program!

Please contact NGuerin@cerconebrown.com or MJackson@cerconebrown.com if you represent a company that is interested in getting involved in one of CBC’s experiential marketing programs.  Limited sponsorship space is still available for the 2011 Winter House.

Boston PR Agency CerconeBrown & Co. Kicks off Green House Experiential Marketing Event

The CerconeBrown & Co. Green House is now underway in one of the nation’s only mutli-family net-zero homes out in Boulder, Colo.

In this one-of-a-kind experiential marketing program, the nation’s top editors are immersed into the most eco-friendly services, products and technology around to gain deep insight on Smart Living, a sensible lifestyle that helps save money and decrease a person’s negative impact on the environment. Some of the most planet-friendly and eco-conscious brands — from Ford to 3M to LG to Tupperware — are combining forces at this distinctive media relations event to revamp press members’ views on sustainability and how they will report to their millions of readers and viewers.

As you might expect, this feat doesn’t come without its fair share of good old-fashioned hard work. The Boston PR Agency crew has been working nearly 20-hour days (wow!) behind the scenes to transform a house surpassing LEED-Platinum certification into a platform for sustainable living. And through undying effort and lots of sweat (but thankfully no blood or tears), the CBC team has hit the ground running — and pretty fast to say the least.

To give you an idea of the kind of energy needed to pull off such an exhilarating event, here’s an inside look at the personal work journal of the CBC crew on site in Boulder:

6:30 a.m. – The day starts bright and early with the team opening the 300th (that’s an understatement) box of Tupperware product to stock the pantry.

7:30 – It’s time to change over the 25th load of laundry (talk about a workout!) in an amazing LG energy-efficient washer and dryer with the new Sweet Sleep organic bedding.

Not too sure how this happened, but cardboard somehow manages to get into the washer machine, and explodes everywhere.  It looks like the Terminator got a little too carried away in a paper factory. Luckily CBC had an LG energy efficient vacuum to save the day and clean up the Terminator’s mess.

Finally, the sheets come out of the wash looking more wrinkled than a shar pei puppy.  Just their luck, there’s no iron in sight.

8:30 – The ever-resourceful CBC team puts their heads together, and calls in a cleaning crew that comes through and goes to town!

8:30 – 10:30 -The architect, realtors, developers, owner, sponsors, mattress delivery crew, contractor, Ford team, 3M sponsors and CBC Green House team are all in and out of the house preparing for the open house to kick off at 11 a.m. (panic mode handled with grace and poise).

11:00 – CBS channel 4 arrives. An interview with the developer and architect commences.

Noon – Super interns Max and Chase head out on a Target run. CBC then meets with the Boulder film crew to do some creative collaborating and document the next three weeks.

1:00 p.m. – No time to rest!  The CBC crew begins drafting the sponsor and editor materials.

3:00 – A Tupperware representative arrives, and more merchandising continues.

4:30 – midnight – CBC continues to set up the house and merch, merch, merch (this stands for merchandising).

This is just a morsel of the effort that goes into creating such an amazing event…stay tuned for more of the CBC Green House frenzy!