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By Christian Bayley
Considering that Brand Activation and event production is what we do here at Toast & Jam, a starting point for many client engagements is answering the question of “What is Brand Activation?”. Quite simply Brand Activation is the art of using online and offline elements to create event based experiences where people can interact with your brand or product. When done correctly Brand Activation strives to extend this experience beyond the event to create measurable and memorable interactions before during and after the event itself.
One way we explain this to clients is through examples, and one of the companies that has really pioneered the Brand Activation approach is Red Bull. We created a post earlier about a travelling smaller Activation experience called Flight Club. But their most talked about Activation is Flugtag. For those of you who don’t know what Flugtag is, Red Bull goes to a couple of cities each year and invites participants to create their own homemade human powered flying machines that roll down a ramp and “launch” over water. Here is a video of this amazing event:
These events pull 80,000+ people, and are just one part of the overall Brand Activation strategy of the company which ranges from sponsoring alternative events to hosting their own exclusive events like Flugtag. Flugtag shows how powerful an Activation can become when you look at the site for the event:
This site builds community for the fans, has tons of video content on the road, and engages people with the product and branding. If you view the YouTube channel for the company you can see hundreds of small activations and captured content each getting views from a few thousand people up to millions.
And finally their latest campaign begins with a huge Activation event in Vegas that is captured and turned into an entire television campaign called Welcome to My World:
These events demonstrate the power of getting consumers to interact with your brand, even watching them you feel a part of the event, which at the end of the day defines Activation.
Tags: Brand Activation, Christian Bayley, Red Bull Flugtag, Toast & Jam
The redbull events are some of my favorites!
I found toast-jam.com very informative. The article is professionally written and I feel like the author knows the subject very well. toast-jam.com keep it that way.
Dear Christian Bayley,
I agree with you totally on what you have said about red bull’s activation. it is so egaging that it is mind boggling. Especially for those who like extreme sports.
I also think the activation appeals to all the five senses:
Sight (Vibrant colors redbull logo ),
Hearing (sounds of running feets, shouts of excitements from contestants & onlookers),
Touch ( Carrying cans of red bull about)
Smell (Refreshing smell of redbull )
I think everything about the activation is spot on.
Thanks
Kingsley Udofa EXP Marketing Nigeria
Great activation. We more of these stuffs in Nigeria.
thanks so much for the great comment Kingsley. . .they are one of my favorite examples of a company that gets it. They not only pioneered a new category of beverage (no easy task) but have taken activation to a whole new level as well. When we plan an activation event for one of our clients we certainly examine all the senses and ask ourselves how we can make impact for each that adds to the total experience of the event.
hahah ok so here is how stupid I am, midway through reading through your post I dropped my sensitive mouse and shut the window in error and I couldn’t find your post again until 4 days later on to finish reading where I left off for the reason that I didn’t remember how I linked here in the first place lol anyway it was worth the delay..kudos
HA! well thanks for sticking in there. . .if we had a reward for persistent reader of the week it would go to you Karan. Thanks for hanging in there hope your mouse is ok!