How Brands Should Approach Sustainability When Creating Brand Experiences in 2022

With the relaxation of Covid measures, brands are keen to have real-life engagements with their target audience once again which is leading to a boom in the demand for experiential marketing services. Brand Experience has notoriously held a reputation for being a wasteful discipline with many activations using single-use building materials and plastics.

Over the last few years awareness of brands’ corporate social responsibility & sustainability practices have rocketed leading to a major review on previous operations & a pressure on brands to improve their environmental footprint.

Moreover, consumers have highlighted the importance of sharing similar environmental values with brands with 74% of consumers stating that this is important to them & 66% of consumers willing to spend more if a brand has sustainable messages. The acceleration of change driven by Covid-19 has made brands review their strategy from previously relying on promotional driven tactical campaigns to longer term brand loyalty initiatives with true purpose & value.

There are simple steps we take at i2i Experiential Marketing to ensure our campaigns are sustainable yet impactful:

Reduce Travel Emissions

Right through from the planning stages to live activation we aim to reduce our environmental impact by making small measures such as hosting meetings online rather than travelling to clients’ offices, using local suppliers, managing campaign scheduling to minimise travel & car sharing where possible.

Modular Kit

When working with clients we scope out their upcoming plans to see if assets can be utilised across multiple projects. We aim to build the kit and stand items in a modular fashion so it is suitable for use in a range of different venues and events and re-branded easily, whilst ensuring we do not compromise on brand impact and quality.

This does mean that clients may have slightly higher upfront costs, however this is followed by reduced future costs, ensuring the assets will last a number of years.

Recyclable Materials

i2i Experiential Marketing work with several trusted suppliers who have strong ethical & sustainability values & are compliant with relevant environmental legislation.

We work with partners who demonstrate a commitment to recycling materials & therefore lowering the amount of wastage being taken to landfill sites, avoid using hazardous substances & avoid creating harmful emissions where possible.

All suppliers use sustainable & responsibly sourced materials where possible. We also try to give our kit a second life after activations by donating kit through such platforms as Event Cycle

 https://www.eventcycle.org/ – where old event kit is upcycled and donated to charities, public bodies etc & given a second life. The picture demonstrates when i2i donated recycled tree trunk dumpbins used for a Tentree roadshow & they were recycled into decorative planters in an adult day care centre.

We also encourage all of our clients to ditch single-use plastics and use recyclable materials when planning a sampling activation.

Enhancing with digital options

By utilising the range of tools available such as QR codes & microsites this allows consumers to access information via a digital platform rather than producing branded collateral.

Brands can use digital platforms for couponing rather than physical and so we assess our clients’ needs to see if this is feasible whilst we also actively promote gifting through digital rewards as well as charitable donation where appropriate.

We also encourage our clients to amplify campaigns with digital communications to maximise their reach to a nationwide audience.

Always assessing impact

At i2i Marketing, in both our working lives and for each campaign, we look in depth at each area as to where we can make everything more sustainable.

This includes how we manage the office e.g. less paper waste, lower carbon emissions & travel, to activating sustainable campaigns eg with recyclable bins at live events, donating leftover product to food banks, minimising wastage and producing our experiential assets with longevity in mind.

 

For more information on how to create sustainable brand experiences  please call 01285 655500 or email info@i2i-marketing.co.uk