These days, it’s not a huge surprise to round the aisle at your local grocery store and find someone handing out samples or coupons of a new product. But driving by a parking lot and seeing a whole festival of contests, activities and promotions? Or having a brightly-colored branded tour vehicle show up at your son’s baseball game handing out free treats? Now that’s unexpected—and memorable. And it’s exactly what Interactions is going for with its mobile tour services.
From single-retailer/brand tours in a limited geographic area to large-scale, multi-brand national tours, Interactions is taking its years of consumer marketing experience on the road to help retailers engage consumers in their communities where they live, work and play. And the tours are often as unique as the retailers and consumers themselves.
With one recent tour, Interactions helped a large mid-Atlantic grocery chain relaunch its own-brand soda through a series of stops at retailer locations and community events. At each stop, consumers engaged with the brand through product samples, games and prizes.
With another tour about to launch later this year, Interactions is assisting a Southern grocery retailer in raising awareness of its own brand products and its fuel rewards program with the help of everyone’s favorite summer treat—ice cream. The tour will feature a branded ice cream truck that travels to key locations and events throughout the community, offering free own-brand ice cream samples and encouraging consumers to sign up for the retailer’s fuel rewards program instantly via tablets housed right on the ice cream truck. Consumers will also be encouraged sign up to have a photo of their ice cream fun emailed to them—enabling continued engagement with the retailer well beyond the initial interaction.
Interactions’ mobile tour expertise expands beyond the grocery arena, too. It recently designed and managed a tour for a national auto parts retailer that engaged consumers at popular racing events through co-branded events with the retailer’s suppliers. “Each stop on the tour was unique,” explains Nicole LeMaire, Interactions’ Director of Operations. “A different vendor hosted each stop, and we worked with each one to develop a promotion that would highlight their products and services, as well as the retailer’s.”
National brands often get involved in these mobile tours to support retailers in expanding their reach, explains Lindsay Holland, Interactions’ Senior Business Development Manager. “CPG sponsorship allows for promotion on a much grander scale than is normally feasible. And the resulting multi-brand tours offer a unique opportunity for both the retailer and CPGs to strengthen their relationships, engage consumers and gather a wide range of insights on their products.”
“These tours always bring an extra level of excitement,” adds LeMaire. “That, combined with the extra time consumers spend engaging with the brand, creates a truly lasting impression.”
