Tennis fans the world over will collectively breathe a sigh of relief when one of the world’s most prestigious tournaments returns to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon for the 134th time at the end of June.

Cancelled last year due to the Covid pandemic – the first time since 1945 – the tournament is also one of the biggest social events in the English calendar and over 500,000 people attended the 13-day event in 2019.

A quintessentially English event, that delivers a quintessentially English experience, Wimbledon is also a much sought-after sponsorship property by many leading brands who want to engage with its well-heeled fans.

As brands go, however, they don’t come more quintessential than Pimm’s – the gin-based fruit drink that is as English as Stilton cheese, beef Wellington and Eton mess.

In 2019, a staggering 276,000 glasses of Pimm’s were served up to fans, making it a valuable part of the brand’s annual experiential marketing activities which revolve around creating experiences and engaging with consumers in the hope that they will become brand fans.

But the company providing this brand experience, however, will not be English but rather the Dublin-based Verve – the largest creative and experiential agency in Ireland, with a turnover in excess of €26m in 2019.

Headed up by Ronan Traynor, this is the agency’s fourth year working with Pimm’s in delivering... well, a quintessentially English brand experience in Wimbledon.

For Ronan Traynor, Wimbledon will also be a much welcome boost to the agency, which has created experiential events for the likes of Guinness, Glanbia, KP Snacks, Diageo, Heinz and Coca-Cola.

More importantly, events like Wimbledon will reignite the wider experiential marketing industry, most of which has been in hibernation for over a year.

“The bounce-back has begun and we are busy planning several live experiential activities for clients for summer and autumn,” Traynor says.

As more and more brands look to engage with consumers, often through live experiences and tailor-made events, experiential marketing is accounting for a rapidly growing share of marketing budgets.

According to a survey published this week by Raw Marketing, another Dublin-based experiential agency, around 63pc of brand owners surveyed say their company includes experiential marketing in their overall marketing mix while 21pc are planning to do so in the future.

Of those companies that are already involved in experiential, 78pc intend to spend more.

While the experiential marketing accounts for a small part of the wider events industry (which is worth €3.5bn a year), Dan McDonnell, MD of the Ranelagh-based Neon Agency, estimates that it could be worth between €200m and €300m a year.

McDonnell is also chairman of the Event Industry Alliance (EIA) and sits on the government’s Live Entertainment Working Group, which is focused on preparing guidelines for reopening the sector. Experiential clients of Neon include the likes of Bacardi, eBay, Facebook, UEFA, Kildare Village, Peroni, Aldi and Virgin.

Like their peers in the wider events sector, both Verve and Neon embraced digital platforms during 2020 to deliver online events for clients. This should stand them in good stead as a hybrid mix of the physical and digital – also known as phygital – looks set to become the norm.

“While the physical event will always be a part of the fabric of Neon Agency, we are becoming less reliant on it as we transition to becoming a truly hybrid agency.

"This allows us to work across borders in a way we have never done before and utilise resources from around the world,” says McDonnell.

“A hybrid model offers lots of opportunity to reach larger audiences and bridge the gap between online and offline. Both online and hybrid are here to stay, they offer companies and brands an opportunity to target consumers who cannot attend in person,” adds Ronan Traynor.

“As the bounce-back has started in earnest, the opportunity will be massive – we’re advising clients to plan now,” he adds. 

Brand owners, you have been warned.

Back to the future 

Publicis Dublin has launched its latest campaign for Virgin Media’s broadband offering – which, the company says, showcases the company’s “relentless pursuit of broadband perfection and to be ready for anything the future might throw at it”. 

The campaign is running across TV, OOH, video-on-demand, social media as well as digital takeovers on news sites. With media and planning by OMD, the film was shot by Antidote Films and directed by US director Nick Roney.

Káno’s new beginning

Dublin-based PR agency Weber Shandwick has rebranded as Káno Communications. The move to rebrand follows a successful management-buyout (MBO) from its former parent, the US communications giant IPG late last year.

The MBO was led by managing director Siobhan Molloy. Under the terms of the deal, Káno Communications will remain affiliated to the global Weber Shandwick network and become its Irish representative.

Sunday Independent