How to Prepare for Experiential Marketing's Return

Jonathan Yaffe's first job out of college was with Red Bull—a brand that built its daredevil identity by leaning heavily on experiential marketing. And while Yaffe has done a lot of other things around the world since then, one thing about his first job bothered him: The energy drink brand had no way to measure if multimillion-dollar events really worked. It had no concrete way of knowing whether people actually loved Red Bull more or bought it more often after being handed a free, cold one while watching someone jump out of an airplane or ride down a mountain on a tricycle. Blue Moon LightSky Gives Instagram, Twitter Users Beer for Spring Cleaning 'Experience relationship management' "That drove me absolutely crazy that we had no data," said Yaffe, now CEO and co-founder of AnyRoad, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that specializes in what the brand has dubbed "experience relationship management." Through AnyRoad, Yaffe is helping brands like Budweiser, Leinenkugel's, Michael's and Nestlé figure out exactly what works for consumers attending their experiential marketing stunts, brand activations or in-store events—and then respond to those insights quickly and simply through the company's platform. Today, AnyRoad announced that it has acquired $10 million in series A1 financing led by Andreessen Horowitz and Runa Capital following an "oversubscribed" funding round where more funders appeared than needed. Launched in 2013, the SaaS platform has spent the last several years building its capacity, allowing brands to collect and analyze first-party data from their fans, consumers or event attendees, and then use that to more effectively meet consumer needs. Millennials spend more on experiences than things While the Covid-19 pandemic changed the landscape of experiential marketing in the short-term, AnyRoad's clients were able to lean on the platform to help them navigate the world of virtual events. Now, as brands begin to plan for in-person and hybrid events in a newly vaccinated world, AnyRoad's data and insights are even more valuable. "I believe we're in the middle of a massive cultural and economic shift from a things economy to an experience economy," Yaffe said. There are several things that point toward this trend, according to Yaffe. First of all, millennials spend more on experiences than they do on things. On top of that, global car ownership is steadily declining, retail brands are shutting down or going bankrupt and Marie Kondo successfully built a global brand on "giving away your hard-earned things," Yaffe said. All of that, he believes, supports a bright future for the world of experiential marketing—and a huge need for the services that AnyRoad offers. "This is a massive, massive economy of experiential [marketing] and the world is accelerating into it even more, but no one has any data," Yaffe said. "No one has the software and the tools to be able to intelligently power these massive experiential programs at scale." Would You Drink This New Cadbury Creme Egg Beer? Helping a small-town marketing team punch above its weight Leinenkugel's, a nationally distributed beer company in Chippewa Falls, Wis., has been working with AnyRoad for about a year and a half. Pre-pandemic, the platform allowed the 154-year-old brewery to streamline and personalize its tours, and optimize its onsite and online retail offerings. But after Covid-19 forced the closure of Leinie Lodge last March, the AnyRoad team was able to consult the Molson Coors-owned brand on how to shift more of its offerings online and track consumer response to those offerings. While the marketing and events side of the Leinenkugel's business is run by a relatively small team in a 13,000-person Wisconsin town, roughly 100,000 tours come through the brewery every year. People come from all over the country to see where Honey Weiss and Summer Shandy are made—but that's something the team didn't know until they started working with AnyRoad. AnyRoad's platform has allowed brands to better understand where their fans come from, and which pieces of their experiential marketing strategies are working. "Did we think everybody was local before? We weren't entirely sure," Lindsey Everson, general manager at Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, told Adweek. "The major markets were along the [interstate] 94 corridor between Minneapolis and Chicago. That's really helped us with how we speak to our guests and how we market." Shaping a new brand's experiential strategy for success For Tennessee whiskey brand Uncle Nearest—named after the first African American master distiller, Nearest Green—learnings have been slightly different. Launched in July 2017, the brand partnered with AnyRoad for its opening party in September 2019. For the next six months, Uncle Nearest worked closely with the AnyRoad team to constantly tweak its in-person events and tours to ensure that the feedback from visitors and fans was immediately incorporated into the consumer experience. "On the tours and after the tours, we were given feedback like, 'We want to see the founder,' 'We want to see this person,'" explained Katharine Jerkens, svp of global sales and marketing at Uncle Nearest. The team even got specific feedback on the brand's wearable merchandise, she said. Fans wanted swag featuring the brand name—nothing fancy. Since the pandemic hit, the distillery has been single-mindedly focused on construction so that it's ready to reopen fully when its safe. So while Uncle Nearest hasn't been hosting virtual tours at the distillery, it has been working with AnyRoad to support regionally focused tastings, corporate happy hours and promotional events via online platforms. As Uncle Nearest looks toward reopening its distillery in Shelbyville, Tenn., it'll continue to use insights from those events and its six months of onsite tours and events to shape the customer experience. That could mean tailoring tours to each visitor depending on how familiar they are with the brand or the craft of making whiskey, or the occasion bringing them to the distillery. As these brands look to a future that offers consumers a renewed opportunity to enjoy in-person experiences—whether that be art classes at Michael's, whiskey tastings at the Uncle Nearest distillery or the Leinie Lodge activation at the Minnesota State Fair—AnyRoad only expects the need for technical support and impact measurement to grow. "The original Renaissance happened because it pulled together people—artists and poets and scientists and people from all walks of life—into a unified movement," Yaffe said. "I believe that that this decade is going to be the unified movement of experience economy." How Fact & Fiction Tapped the Potential of Beer Brand Voodoo Ranger on Instagram

Experiential Marketing

This Startup Wants to Host an 'Experiential Renaissance' on Its Data-Driven Platform

AnyRoad works with brands like Leinenkugel's, Michael's and Nestlé

‘Experience relationship management’

Kathryn Lundstrom

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Kathryn Lundstrom