Exclusive Research: Study Finds Experiential Marketing Becoming a 'Content Factory' for Fortune 1000 Marketers

​Experiential marketing has emerged as an incredibly effective platform for creating and distributing content between brands and consumers, according to the fifth-annual EventTrack study, fielded by The Event Marketing Institute and leading experiential marketing agency Mosaic, unveiled this week.

Findings include:

  • More than half of marketers (51%) plan to invest more in experiential content this year.
  • 98% of consumers capture content at live events, and 100% of those who capture content share it across their social media networks.
  • Marketers are putting more emphasis on cultivating consumer-created content than their own brand-created content. And almost a third (32%) use content from live events as content for their traditional above-the-line media campaigns.
  • More than three-quarters (77%) of brands use content from live events and experiences across their social networks. And 83% of consumers share content from events up to 15 times—some 47% of them would prefer to share content they capture versus content fed to them by a brand.

"Using live experiences to create content for the rest of the marketing mix is one of the fastest-growing trends in the world," says Mosaic President Jeff Stelmach. "Experiential marketing has become the modern CMO’s content factory. And consumers themselves are, more and more, creating, capturing, distributing content across their own social networks."

Growth of experiential marketing, the use of live events such as sponsorships, mobile tours, street marketing, pop-up stores, in-store experiences, sampling, proprietary events, mall tours, trade shows, b-to-b meetings, p.r. events and street stunts, continues to outpace growth among other marketing channels such as advertising, promotion and emarketing. “Using content from experiences across the marketing mix is adding to the growth of experiential marketing,” says Event Marketing Institute Group Editor Jessica Heasley. “And as consumers themselves continue to create and share content from experiences, the trend is only expected to heat up.”

EventTrack is the largest annual research fielded on event and experiential marketing. Hundreds of Fortune 500 companies and upwards of 1,000 consumers participated in this year's study, created and fielded by The Event Marketing Institute and top experiential marketing agency Mosaic. Unique to EventTrack is its "Split Ecosystem" format. Each year EventTrack focuses on a specific trend to explore—separate surveys to marketers and consumers dive deep into the use of that trend by marketers and its acceptance and reaction among consumers.

The EventTrack 2016 executive summary and a collection of the report's top charts are available to the press at HERE.

ABOUT THE EVENT MARKETING INSTITUTE
The Event Marketing Institute serves the information needs of Fortune 1000 marketing departments and top marketing agencies—it is the only association of its kind in the world. The Institute provides such member companies as Microsoft, Boeing, Oracle, Coca-Cola, Toyota, HP and hundreds of others with comprehensive education, research and analysis related to event and experiential marketing. Learn more at eventmarketing.com.

ABOUT MOSAIC
Mosaic is among the fastest growing agencies in North America, delivering branded experiences to consumers in-store, in the community and online–where two-way interactions happen. Mosaic designs dynamic, shareable experiences at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds that are rooted in emotion and delivered through human interaction, giving our audience a story to tell and a feeling to cherish. We connect brands with consumers through People as Media™ – our one-to-one approach to delivering deeper engagement along the path to advocacy. From events to retail connection to social platforms, we use the power of dialogue to change minds, drive purchase and create belief, inspiring people to become the authentic voice of the brands they love. Learn more at Mosaic.com.

Media Contact: Sarah Bush, sarah.bush@mosaic.com, 312-526-3126 x 6216

Source: Event Marketing Institute