Marketing Gimmick Sells Through Experience
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Eric Dorfman, a former union bridge painter turned marketer, thinks he may have finally stumbled on an ingenious and cost-effective way to sell luxury products to chic conscious New Yorkers – by not selling the product at all.
Instead, he’s offering free haircuts on behalf of his client Crown Royal and betting that the pleasure of getting a leisurely trim is preferable for the liquor company’s desired customers to gazing at a whiskey billboard.
“We’re branding experience,” said Eric Dorfman. “It’s theatrical. It’s a set. We’re taking you inside the billboard and telling you to relax and sample a lifestyle where you can still be yourself. We’re looking to leave impressions, lasting impressions.”
Last week, Mr. Dorfman, owner of downtown marketing company EDMedia Inc., opened the doors to the first installment of Location, a rented storefront at 199 Lafayette Street which he hopes will feature a “product installation” each month. Analysts call the trend “pop ups,” short-term stores that appear in rental spaces.
Now playing in Mr. Dorfman’s space is the Crown Royal Barbershop, where images of the liquor company blanket storefront windows much like a billboard and Crown Royal images are played on a video projector. Inside, a DJ spins hip-hop records and barbers from the Harlem-based company Levels give free haircuts. Hours are noon to 9pm, seven days a week until November 15th.
There are no forms to fill out or bottles of Crown Royal for sale or on display on the walls, which are painted an imperial purple to give the feeling of being trapped inside a flask of whiskey coated in velvet.
Mr. Dorfman’s other ideas for the space are to install a free laundromat designed for singles and to promote detergent, a no-cost DJ school for a shoe company, a tattoo parlor for pain relieving drugs, and a complimentary coffee shop.
“This is certainly an interesting new experience on the landscape; it shows how hard it is for people to advertise effectively,” said James Gilmore, co-author of “The Experience Economy,” published by Harvard Business Review Press. “What’s happening here is that the advertiser is dimensionalizing their brand, making it 3-D and giving it depth.”
Also appealing, especially for Mr. Dorfman’s clients like Crown Royal, is affordability. Jason Traubowitz, director for Diageo, the liquor giant that owns Crown Royal along with a stable of other spirits such as Smirnoff and Tanqueray, said that it has been more cost effective for Diageo to hire Mr. Dorfman to build a barber shop for a month (his price was $37,000) than to design and build a billboard, which, in addition to creative costs, can range from $50,000 to over $100,000.
Crown Royal isn’t the only company investing in experiential marketing recently. In August, the New Jersey-based cat food company Meow Mix rented a Fifth Avenue storefront across from the New York Public Library to open a “cafe” for cats to highlight a new line of wet cat food.
After spending a total of $200,000 on the campaign and donating $20,000 in proceeds from serving cats $2 portions of the new food to charity, Keith Fernbach, the company’s public relations director, said Meow Mix is now on the prowl to create more “community based” ads.