16 Aug 2017 | by Anthony Kelly

Marketers across the globe are striving to achieve the type of brand success that most consumers will be totally unaware of. Branding that is so successful, the brand name is used to refer to all products of its type. This is called a ‘proprietary eponym’, examples of this success include:

Hoover – consumers all over the world will have a weekly chore of hoovering (I hope anyway!), rather than vacuum cleaning.

Coca Cola – When needing to quench their thirst the majority of consumers will request a coke rather than a cola.

Zipper – probably one of the best of all time. Do you know this products real name?!?! (I didn’t). Most people will do up their zip rather than their hookless slide fastener.

Whilst achieving success of this kind is the holy grail of brand marketing and it is of course achievable; it takes a lot of time, effort and in some cases luck. A step towards this success and a more instant method of increasing brand awareness that offers additional consumer satisfaction, is to create an experience that consumers can share and interact with your brand. Whether it is the first glimpse of a new product, an opportunity to educate existing customers or a campaign to extend brand reach, live events are an opportunity to put your brand front of mind and allow consumers to not only engage, but create their own story that incorporates your brand.

Creating a brand experience that consumers can capture and share not only extends the reach of your brand, it also creates a dialogue amongst consumers. Figures taken from the Event Track 2017 Report state that 60% of consumers social media posts regarding brand experiences receive more than 25 reactions and comments, with 29% receiving more than 50.

Discover how to keep your audience engaged at your next event by downloading  our handy guide to audience engagement

Event Experience

Live events provide an ideal opportunity to invite consumers to interact with your brand. Whether through a captive audience at a consumer conference, product launch, exhibition or an experience for the masses such as a roadshow, brand activation or experiential campaign. Research has shown that 98% of consumers that have attended a live event have an increased intent to purchase goods.

Having always been a necessary weapon in a brand managers’ arsenal, events are more impactful than they have ever been. Not only is a brand amplified through attendee’s social media channels, an event or an experience, it provides a host of content that can be propagated long after the event has finished. With 78% of consumers saying they feel better about a brand after viewing video from branded experiences and events, a live event provides a great opportunity to create effective and engaging video content that can be shared across multiple channels.

With all of this in mind, it would be interesting to ask yourself how far away your brand is from becoming a proprietary eponym? Is it even possible? Is there scope for you to introduce more events into your brand plan to further engage consumers and how will this help you to achieve your brand goals?

For a bit of fun here is a link to a list of even more proprietary eponyms, can you think of any that have been missed? (I can!)

Download our FREE guide today

Anthony Kelly

By Anthony Kelly

Head of New Business MarketingMore articles by Anthony Kelly