A live brand experience is designed to make you not only remember a brand but also to identify with it on many levels. A good live brand experience will infiltrate the psyche of visitors by tickling their senses. It is not just a visual and touchy-feely experience; the senses of sound, taste and smell can also be aroused to reinforce brand personality and to leave the visitor with a very positive feeling about your brand.

Experiential Marketing is all about live brand experiences and a lot of thought and effort goes into identifying sounds, smells, tastes, images and so on that complement a brand’s personality. However, even though a live event might have been planned in the most thorough manner there are tiny examples where attention to detail might be missed. We believe that the experience should extend right through to the promotional literature that is on hand at every live event. If the brand personality is young, bright and bouncy, why would you present someone with a plain, flat, boring leaflet?

We have suggested examples which might prove to be good ideas for product literature at a live brand experience. Take a brand personality such as that just mentioned – young, bright and bouncy. Our Jumpinjax product fits the bill perfectly. Products with a subtle, smooth and silky personality might be better served by a classic startburst with a matt or silk laminate finish. For a touch of class, a gloss UV varnish could be added. Both of these suggestions not only appeal to the visual sense but both offer an actual experience of their own; one of surprise and laughter and the other of fascination. A professional experiential marketer will understand the value of both ideas and will welcome other suggestions in our Experiential Marketing category.

 Even though Direct Marketing products and ideas have been a feature of our Pop up Mailers website for some time, it is only after the recent facelift that Direct Marketing has its very own section. Promotional Mailers is a term that could be applied to just about every product in our range but we have decided to concentrate only on those products which have their own mailing “envelope”.

Most of the products in this category have an automatic pop-up action such as the versatile pop-up castle / choc box and the pop-up pyramid. Both of these products have a very distinctive shape which can inspire direct marketing ideas. A good idea, coupled with the pop-up element will create a direct mailing piece that will generate excellent response rates. A web search for “response rates dimensional mail” will give you some idea of what to expect. There are plenty of independent examples and opinions that reinforce our beliefs that pop-ups produce direct marketing results. 

The reason for giving Direct Marketing products a dedicated section is purely to assist marketers who need a creative nudge. It is easy to understand how a marketing professional can hit a “wall” when looking for something completely different but a search for “direct mail ideas” should lead you to the place with all the answers!

When we redesigned our Pop-up Mailers website we introduced a number of new categories. We had been looking at how to improve our “marketing ideas” section and during our research I came across one area of marketing which was new to me and that was Ambient Media. I had seen examples of ambient media; I just wasn’t aware that it had a name! Basically, it’s all about putting ads where you don’t necessarily expect to see them. Popular examples which are cited on the internet are ads on the hanging straps on trains and ads on the handlebars of supermarket trolleys. Having discovered the term and started to read up on the subject, it became obvious to me that we might be able to make one or two suggestions to professionals using ambient media advertising techniques; hence the inclusion on the new-look website of a small selection of products with ambient media potential.

 From my point of view, the best option is offered by door hangers. I have long advocated the use of door hangers as a source of fun so why not extend that into the realm of ambient media advertising. Unless you are out in the wilds somewhere, there are doors everywhere so the opportunity is a good one. Another, less obvious possibility is the use of face masks. Often seen as no more than a bit of fun at a party, face masks have more recently figured at many football grounds, so why not in a promotional capacity. You will find suggestions for these and other items such as bottle collars and parking discs on our ambient media webpage.

According to Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerrilla Marketing is the marketing domain of SMEs. The success of a Guerrilla Marketing campaign is all about the amount of energy, thought and time that a person is prepared to devote to the promotion and waht’s more; it’s an ongoing process. This applies to Whitney Woods as much as it applies to other SMEs and the gradual development and expansion of our website to include Guerrilla Marketing products is, somewhat ironically, an example of how online Guerrilla Marketing might work for us. A search on Google UK UK for “Guerrilla Marketing Products”, with the inverted commas, revealed only 3 entries this morning so maybe we’re onto something!

So, what do we mean by Guerrilla Marketing products? Well, I have been reading Mr. Levinson’s books to learn more about the genre and to see if we can jump onto the bandwagon in some way. I have recognised that certain products in our range are perfect for Guerrilla Marketing campaigns involving street teams and so we have featured a handful online along with suggestions of how the products might bring improved results in order to give you some guerrilla marketing ideas.

When I have seen street teams in action it usually involves a young person indiscriminately handing out A5 flyers in a busy shopping street followed by busy shoppers throwing away the leaflet as they pass the nearest bin (Note for street teams - don’t hand out leaflets near a waste bin!). Our research shows that pocket sized handouts and handouts with a difference are far more likely to be retained by the shopper, simply because the put them in a pocket rather than into a bin!

Products like our Foldilocks card and the Little Big Card are perfect for street team marketing and by adding a little imagination you can create something really memorable. An example of what I mean would be the Open Mouth card which has a really amusing action created by a simple cut and fold. Guerrilla Marketers could do worse than take a look. 

It took a while but it was worth the wait! We have always included a section on our website devoted to Marketing Ideas but our ongoing research into customer requirements told us that you wanted us to be more specific; well, you got it!

Our new-look PopupMailers website now features not only Marketing Ideas but also specific sections on different aspects of marketing. The featured groups are Ambient Media, Direct Marketing, Experiential Marketing, Guerrilla Marketing and Relationship Marketing. Each group has a section devoted to products that are ideal for campaigns and promotions in that specific category.

Take Experiential Marketing as an example. We feature several products which we believe would extend the live experience all the way through to the product marketing literature. Each product has a high degree of customer interaction which is essential to Experiential Marketing and each product will also have a close identity with the brand personality. To give just one perfect example - look at the Interloop Mailer. It has a massive element of customer intertaction, it is quick, clever and fun; perfect for a live experience for many brands, particularly those with a lively and youthful appeal.