On Monday, June 5th, we hosted the third in our series of 2023 Huddles all about marketing immersive experiences.
We’re took a deep dive into the process of finding and building an audience for immersive experiences. Whilst there is no doubt that the audiences for immersive work are rapidly growing, the audience demographics can vary widely between different experiences and there is currently little data to utilise when creating marketing plans for new work.
As a new and emerging sector, we often come up against the challenge of mainstream media not having a specific category for the work, and the widespread indiscriminate use of the word ‘immersive’ making explaining what an experience is, and setting audience expectations accordingly, almost impossible.
Hosted by IEN co-founder and Director of Yonderbeyond, Sheena Patel, the panellists discussed their approach to marketing both live and digital immersive experiences, including managing pre-sales and initial announcements, allotment of marketing spend, and lessons learned from previous campaigns.
Marketing Glossary
Our panel use some marketing terms which you may not be familiar with. We’ve included a few definitions here to help give some context to the conversation.
UTM Links – A UTM code is a snippet of text added to the end of a URL to track the metrics and performance of a specific digital marketing campaign. They are used when collecting data for online analytics.
ROI – Return on Investment, how much money do you make from the marketing investment you’ve made eg. how many extra tickets have you sold due to an advert you’ve paid for.
PPC – Pay Per Click – online adverts where you pay every time someone clicks on it
Affiliate Marketing – An arrangement where you pay a 3rd party, like a website, commission on sales generated from referrals.
Our Panellists
Meri Mance – Founder, Mance Communications
Mance Communications deliver effective lifestyle communications strategies that put forward-thinking businesses and concepts at the forefront of their industry. They work alongside exciting brands to find creative ways to build awareness and drive footfall to entertainment venues and experiences.
Having worked with numerous prestigious organisations from luxury lifestyle to drinks brands and immersive entertainment – including projects from LVMH, Universal, BBC, Warner Bros and Fever as well as Phantom Peak, Swingers and The Crystal Maze – they know how to build a brand’s profile, engage customers and gain press buy-in through considered PR strategy, effective campaigns and long lasting media relationships.
Tom Beynon – Creative Producer, The Path Entertainment Group
Tom is the Creative Producer at The Path Entertainment Group and was responsible for the concept development and delivery of Monopoly Lifesized and Saw Escape Experience London. He works closely with internal and external marketing and PR partners on both productions, developing strategy and adapting to the wants and needs of their audiences. Prior to this, he was a General Manager at Selladoor Worldwide working on national and international touring musicals and plays including Footloose, American Idiot, The Crucible, and Spamalot.
Ralph Barker – Head of Marketing, Phantom Peak
Ralph is Head of Marketing for Phantom Peak, London’s first immersive theme park. Over the last decade, he has worked across the immersive industries for companies including Secret Cinema, Layered Reality and Swamp Motel, helping to provide creative marketing solutions and opportunities for business development. With a Masters Degree in Applied Imagination, Ralph describes himself as a Commercial Creative, combining data-led sales techniques with imaginative creative strategy.
