In-Home brand activation

By Mark Chatelier, Executive Creative Director, STORMBRANDS 5-minute read

The COVID crisis has accelerated the trend in brand activation towards digital and has shown just what is possible when brands apply creativity and empathy to these digital activations.

The best marketing activations surprise and delight. They capture people’s hearts, minds and imaginations, cutting through the cacophony of marketing noise and drawing them towards a brand. Getting it right is nothing short of an art form. And whereas in the past a brand might have been able to catch my attention on a morning commute as I browse my phone, or at a pop-up store as I venture through Shoreditch, this is far more challenging during the lockdown.

Brands and brand activation agencies have had to rapidly figure out how to capture our attention while we’re confined to our homes.

Far too many have taken the obvious route of simply announcing ‘We’re in this together’. This makes the lazy assumption that just because we’re at home we’re a captive audience. On the contrary, many people have been enjoying more time with family, possibly using time more productively, and most definitely yearning for the great outdoors.

There have though been brands that have been more imaginative with their activation campaigns, who have looked for ideas that add real, enduring value.

AirBnb Online Experiences

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, AirBnb launched AirBnb Online Experiences. With travel grounded right now, it effectively brought the world to us, together with all the rich cultures and people that shape it. I can learn to mix and drink Sangria with drag queens in Portugal. I can practise card tricks with a magician from Ukraine. I can undertake a Balinese water blessing ritual live from Indonesia. All in real-time. Wow!

This provides a revenue stream to AirBnB’s network of hosts who are no doubt struggling with lack of bookings. It also gives people the chance to meet our future hosts, but most importantly it represents a world that is waiting on the other side. It’s a powerful idea and platform that transcends this situation.

This provides a revenue stream to AirBnB’s network of hosts who are no doubt struggling with lack of bookings. It also gives people the chance to meet our future hosts, but most importantly it represents a world that is waiting on the other side. It’s a powerful idea and platform that transcends this situation.

Nike stepping up with PPE

It’s a brand activation campaign founded on the realisation that people want and need new experiences. It brings people together, doing something new, interacting in new ways, engaging with new ideas and with new people. It gets our attention.

It’s important to remember too that activations are only one way to build awareness and loyalty. We’ll thank Nike for bringing us its Nike Training Club – free workout plans with master trainers – live to our living rooms. But we’ll respect Nike for using its factories, materials and technologies to create PPE for the front-line.

This will be a lasting change in how we approach marketing activation. During this crisis with access to the outside world restricted, the best examples of in-home-activations have come from brands that firstly empathise with the situation, and secondly, look to what they can do to change the game – not just for now but for the future.

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