Smart-XM’s mission to improve experiential marketing and go beyond the “one-and-done” approach that plagues the industry started with Los Arango Tequila, and it began in one of the most challenging environments we’ve ever seen for event marketing: COVID-19.
Los Arango is a newer brand in the deluxe tequila category that has seen strong growth, rising to the top ten within this segment. However, it is still relatively unknown compared to brands like Casamingos and Patron.
Initially, we had four activations scheduled at various tequila expos to increase brand awareness and drive sales. Due to COVID, that number was cut down to two, but those two activations in Kitchener and Niagara Falls in late 2021 were enough to show the impact that our unique experiential marketing strategies and tactics could have.
The execution was fairly simple. After a conducting a thorough interview process, we hired two excellent brand ambassadors, extensively trained them on the Los Arango brand and products, and tested them to make sure they were prepared for the events.
A key goal of these activations was getting the contact information of attendees we interacted with so we could build a Los Arango database and enable strategic re-marketing opportunities. We offered a chance at a prize to incentivize attendees to share their data. This was the first time that Smart-XM was able to deploy our QR code solution, which enabled us to get results no other experiential marketing agency could.
Despite essentially being a pilot program, we saw immediate success. Out of approximately 250 to 300 attendees between the two events, we were able to get 177 impressions and collect data on 130 contacts. That’s roughly a 64% impression rate and a 73% conversion rate on data collection.
Another way Smart-XM goes beyond “one-and-done” is by gaining greater insight on the brand. We capture data well beyond what a typical sampling could do. We get accurate data directly from the consumer rather than anecdotal musings reported by a brand ambassador.
For example, through our solution, we learned that:
- Roughly 80% of attendees who visited our booth had never tried Los Arango before.
- The most mentioned competitive brands were Patron and Don Julio.
- The average taste rating of consumers who tried Los Arango was 73% for “excellent” and 24% for “good”, resulting in an average rating of 4.6 on a scale of 5.
- Average consumer engagement time with our immersive activation was nearly 2 minutes which was particularly high compared to other brands on display at these expos.
We were also able to discover the purchase intent of consumers, the percentage of people who had tried the brand before and regularly drink tequila, the brand they typically drink, and many other data points. The conclusion from this initial pilot was that we could materially improve how sampling and experiential alcohol marketing works by adding in a technological component that has the potential to deliver far greater brand value.