How to Stand Out When Every Competitor Sounds the Same with Chrissie Bardwell

Chrissie Bardwell: The moment that you walk into your, your CMO or you know, somebody in your C suite and say I want budget because I want to create experiential marketing, then you've already lost. They're just going to be like, what, what is this? What, why are you doing it? You've already lost the, lost the argument there. So you need to walk in and say, I have got a segmentation of, you know, 40 strategic customers. They represent X in pipeline. We know that at this stage in the sales cycle, if we have a face to face event, we're much more likely to accelerate the X amount of time or to improve the deal size by X. You know, these are the sorts of stats that you really need to come in with and that, that then becomes a business conversation.

Karen Lloyd: Welcome to the spotlight on Marketing brought to you by Armstrong Lloyd, headhunters in the B2B marketing space. I'm your host, Karen Lloyd and today I am joined by Chrissie Bardwell, the global vice president of marketing Strategy uh, viva. And today we're going to talk about why experiential marketing is having its moment where AI works and human experience wins. So this is how to prove the commercial value of creative marketing. I'm excited to talk to Chrissie because she's made a deliberate move back towards experiential marketing. Creating real world memorable experiences for customers at a time where everybody else seems obsessed with AI. So if you're struggling to get buy in for unusual, slightly different marketing initiatives and you're wondering how the balance of AI with actual human activity is going to work, or you're even trying to get return on investment to show the brand awareness. This one is for you. Welcome Chrissie.

Chrissie Bardwell: Thank you, Karen. I'm really pleased to be here.

Karen Lloyd: So you mentioned you're seeing a real move back towards experiential marketing. Can you explain what you meant by this and why it's happening now?

Chrissie Bardwell: Yes, yes, of course. Look, uh, I think that people are really craving the experiences that screens can't fake. And look, I think there were two things that collided all at once. We had Covid, of course, and it just completely stripped us of all of these human interactions that we were having. And I don't think that we really realized how essential those human interactions were until they were gone. And then after months and months of enforced isolation, consumers, you know, people, we emerged with this extraordinary, um, hunger for cultural and live experiences. And the revenues around live events have hit an all time peak. And that industry didn't just recover after Covid, it's actually surpassed those pre pandemic levels. And then of course AI, like you said, then I arrived and it's really turbocharged. The second problem, which is trust. And we are now swimming in this digital ocean of content and we increasingly, we don't know what's real and what isn't. So you know, did a person actually craft this message that I've received? Is that photo genuine or is it AI? Is this news fake? You know, there's lots of fake news around, we just don't know. And then there's this proliferation as well. There are, ah, around 370 billion emails sent every day. It's insane, it's a huge amount and AI is just making that number grow, it's really accelerating that volume. But at the same time, click through, rates are falling in double digit numbers. And this is where marketing really hits an issue because when volume growth is faster than relevance, that's when attention just collapses. So you've got all of these people drowning in digital noise and it's increasingly difficult to distinguish what's authentic from what's manufactured. And I think experiential marketing therefore is really a very logical but also very desired response.

Karen Lloyd: And uh, I want to just point out, I know you said this, but what you're, you're not saying you're anti AI at all, are you?

Chrissie Bardwell: Absolutely not, no, no, no, not at all.

Karen Lloyd: I mean there is a place where I, and you know, and some of, some of the messages and things, but basically it's, you know, this is about giving companies perhaps who have gone down the AI route something different that they can maybe bring into their marketing mix rather than just focusing on, you know, churning AI content out and cutting back on what you're doing.

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, exactly. So you're right, let's get straight to it. AI is an extraordinary tool and that goes, goes without saying when we talk about experiential marketing. There are some things that AI just can't do. There was a moment I joined Chief Chief, it's a female members club for executives who, who want to network and it launched in the UK a number of years ago and I joined Chief as one of the founding members and there was this moment where I stood in a room with 200 senior female member peers and that's never happened for me before. You know, having so many senior females in a room and I just felt this, I felt this shift. You know, something really shifted within me. I cannot replicate that. It cannot replicate a handshake, it cannot replicate, you know, sharing a meal with colleague or a peer. It can't replicate storytelling that really stirs a real kind of feeling of emotion. Those experiences, they really become part of you as a person and who you are, and they become part of your memory almost. And that's really important. And that's what brands are looking for. There's something that I really want to mention at this stage. Um, I don't want to push back. There was something that Timothee Chalamet said recently, and I'm sure everyone's very familiar with this. It was a widely circulated clip. He claims that no one cares anymore about ballet or opera. He said that attention spans have eroded to the point that these art forms, that they're not relevant anymore. Now there's a lot to say about this and there are many reasons why I think he's wrong, but ultimately I think he's really got this backwards. And I want to hone in on one, one aspect of why, if we think about why people go to the ballet or opera, right, it's because they want to feel something. It's because they know that a human being has spent, you know, years, decades, probably their whole lives in fact, really honing a technique, a, uh, craft. And that performance that you're watching, it's unique to that moment. It's not repeatable. You're seeing that one instance of that performance and the energy that you feel from the audience as well, that's unique too, that cannot be replicated. Everybody's there, the energy is in the room. Everybody's in awe of that performance. And you know, it's very difficult to articulate why that is so important for the human experience. But we all crave that and we all want to be there and we all want to be part of that. And I just cannot replicate that. You know, art, design, craft, ballet and opera, um, these are imminently human experiences. And I think they, those experiences are going to become even more precious as AI is flooding every single channel, every single touch point that we have in our day to day lives in a digital way. And then of course, that same principle, it applies to marketing. It's the event that your customer attended, it's the conversation they've had with your executive. It's an experience, experience that they've had that has surprised or moved them. And I think that's why experiential marketing is going to become as part of your marketing mix. Right? So, so don't get me wrong, digital is still important, AI is still important. But I think this is a really important part of your marketing. Mix, and it's going to help you to really gain a competitive advantage as well.

Karen Lloyd: Also, people have a choice, don't they? You know, some people don't like ballet, Some people do like ballet. Some people do like, you know, having those emotional experiences. Some people don't. And I think it's, it's, you know, we're human beings, aren't we? And that's the key factor really, which I think that really attributes to this. So you've talked about creating emotional connections with your customers that they'll remember forever. So can you give us an examples of how this really translates and works in practice, especially in like a B2B context?

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best experiential marketing really creates a moment. It's a, uh, point in time at which, you know, something that a customer is really going to remember. Not only that they're going to remember, but they're going to want to share stories about that moment as well. And I think those moments that, that storytelling, that, that emotion, the feels that are shared off of the back of one of those experiences, this is a KPI that you don't see on a dashboard.

Karen Lloyd: Right.

Chrissie Bardwell: But it's super, super important and it really drives everything. And B2C brands, they've known this forever. They've been doing this, you know, luxury brands, retailers. I think in B2B we're catching up. And maybe people, you know, didn't really believe that experiential marketing or emotional connection is important in B2B. But yes, it really is. It is, in the same way as it is in the B2C landscape. So I think when it comes to experiential marketing, marketers need to think about something that is going to be truly memorable, something that's maybe unexpected, that has a sensory richness, personal relevance, you know, hobbies that people have, something that they really enjoy, something that they aspire to, potentially. Something that you can touch, that you can feel, uh, something that you might not experience every day. So I think that those are the things that, that you would think of within experiential marketing. And to give an example, something that we've been doing at Aviva is, you know, we, we'd invite a customer into an exclusive experience on a racetrack during a race day. In that experience, they're not just remembering the brand, they're really becoming advocates that they, uh, become affiliated. They want to continue that experience even after they've had that experience. And they're able to do that via the brand. And this is where I should introduce Our Porsche Formula E partnership that I've developed in my role at Aviva, because I think this is a real live example of that kind of experiential marketing that I've described. And having a partnership with a sports team, with a race team, in this case, like Porsche Motorsport, it's not just about advertising and brand awareness, it's not just about content, it's about that immersive world and that experience which is really built uh, around, around the shared values that we already have. So with us and Portia, we have shared values around sustainability, engineering efficiency. So all of these things come together but we're able to wrap an experience around that. We're able to show how we're working with this partnership and with our customer. Porsche Motorsport is also our customer and create an experience that our customers and prospects are going to remember.

Karen Lloyd: I just want to clarify for the listeners because people sometimes get confused with what Aviva does because there's other companies that have a similar name that are, um, insurance brands and other things. So could you just explain the context of what Aviva's product offering and why the sort of relevancy of the E Formula?

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, so Aviva is an industrial software company and we have a mission around sustainable operations. We want to help the world's most complex industries to use less energy, to waste less, to be smarter, to be more efficient. Our values then match with the Porsche Motorsport team in Formula E is that they are competing in the world's only all electric motorsport series. It's actually the fastest, or it will be in Gen 4 at the next season's launch. It will be the second fastest motorsport after Formula 1. So it's very exciting and our values are really aligned around that piece about electrification. As I said, sustainability, performance and efficiency, these things are all perfectly aligned for us. And it's also really amazing customer story for us because as we are supporting the Porsche Motorsport support team, they are using our technology. We're going to be able to help them to benefit from increases in their performance and having more efficiency as well. So again, like I say, all of these values are perfectly aligned for us. And like I said as well, it gives our customers, uh, and prospects access to this world that is really exciting, that's exclusive, it's technically credible as well. And it creates these events and moments that uh, are completely miles away from everybody's normal day to day everyday life.

Karen Lloyd: It's a great name, isn't it? And it's brilliant that you've also, if they're a customer of yours, so there's that synergy. I could just imagine though, some skeptical people listening to this going, oh, it's all well and good for them with, with you know, having Porsche as a customer and doing this thing, but we're never going to get something like this over the line because it's a bit too, I don't know, maybe that we can't approve, you know, the commercial value on this. You know, how am I going to get this past my CEO? It sounds like he's going to think we're all off on a, or she's going to think we're all off on a jolly. So how do you make a business case for something like this?

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think actually this is a really good example of where I can support a marketing team helping to create business cases around these sorts of topics. And the question you're asking, it's a challenge that every marketer, uh, every marketing leader faces. Not just on experiential marketing. This should be something of thinking about across all of your activations, of course. And I think ultimately how you create a business case really comes down to speaking the language of um, a commercial outcome and that that's the only way to do it. Because the moment that you walk in to your, your CMO or you know, somebody in your C suite and say I want budget because I want to create experiential marketing, then you've already lost that. It's going to be like, what is this? What, why are you doing it? You've already lost the, lost the argument there. So you need to walk in and say, I have got a segmentation of, you know, 40 strategic customers. They represent X in pipeline. We know that at this stage in the sales cycle, if we have a face to face event, we're much more likely to accelerate the deal by X amount of time or to improve the deal size by X. You know, these are the sorts of stats that you really need to come in with and that, that then becomes a business conversation. So just like all marketing, experiential marketing really needs to sit within that commercial, uh, framework. You need to know who the target accounts are, uh, you know, what stage are they at in the pipeline? Who do we want to influence within that account? What's the deal size, what's the expansion opportunity? And then you need to build the experience around those commercial requirements. And we do this at Aviva. One thing that we're really good at here at Aviva is we do work in tandem with our sales organization and we jointly own the pipeline, so we're all accountable for it. And that makes the commercial conversation, you know, easier. But also, you know, it's a no brainer as well.

Karen Lloyd: And you know, I'm so glad you said that about the exponential marketing because the thing is, is when, when I initially we knew you were doing quite a lot with formulary. We'd seen, you know, you doing stuff as a team and we were like, oh, this is really cool. We'd really like to talk to Krissy about it, maybe discuss it with her on the podcast and you then explain the strategy. And at the first I was a bit like, really? I'm not really sure that that means anything to me, this sort of Spanish marketing. And I wasn't sure, it seemed a bit sort of like out there and I thought people aren't going to resonate with it. But since you explained it to me, I've just been, I've been having moments where I've been in my actual life and thought this is an experiential marketing moment. You know, they've created this for me and I am now buying more into this brand and it's made me more aware as a consumer and a human being really. So I think you're absolutely onto something. And then going back to the KPI. So earlier on we said there is no dashboard for feel on the KPIs and that emotional piece. But what KPIs could you measure in this? That's going to, you know, after the event or you know, afterwards that that is going to, that is going to make people happy that this was a commercial value.

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, as I said, pipeline is always number one for me. Always. There needs to be that commercial value. Pipeline impact always comes first. But here are some of the metrics. I've noted them down actually. Here are some of the metrics that I care about in order. First, first of all, as I said, pipeline impact. So how many target accounts did we, did we engage? What was the pipeline value that was represented in the guests that were in the room? And as I said before, did we improve the velocity? Did we improve the deal size? Next number two is executive engagement depth. So did we get the right people in the room? Were the decision makers there? Were those decision makers having conversations with our C suite? And then how many net new relationships did we have? Did we reach a number of contacts that weren't already in our CRM? And in particular for us this is really around bringing in new C suite contacts within our prospecting customer base as well. And we Want to understand how many new C suite contacts were generated as well. And then it goes into things like brand advocacy and brand recall, brand signals. So did attendees share the experience? What we've been able to do on LinkedIn, are there conversations happening with peers? Is there organic amplification? What was the sentiment around that event? Does this change how people perceive Aviva? Would they recommend it to appear all of those kind of NPS typed questions that you would use as well? So, so yeah, there are many areas that we would want to look at, but ultimately what business comes down to is did it create pipeline and is it moving? Is it really, you know, helping us to create revenue ultimately?

Karen Lloyd: So bottom line, you're not going to go into a meeting and put this business case about doing some event that just feels emotionally right. Basically it's the data before, after and during, you know, the pipeline that is going to build the case and is going to show this. It's also going to set you aside from your customers. So, you know, there's still marketing involved in this. It isn't just this woo feeling. There is, you know, there is all the tactics and strategy that we use in any other activation, as you said.

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Karen Lloyd: Is there anything else you want to talk about this project actually and about this, this aspect that we haven't discussed?

Chrissie Bardwell: Well, I think, I think we can talk a little bit about experiential marketing and a bit more about how, you know, retailers, the B2C environment has been doing this very well and what B2B can learn. Because I, uh, as I said earlier, I think, you know, maybe B2B marketing teams don't feel like this is some, an area that they need to get into or that it's not relevant for them, but it absolutely is. So I'd love to touch on that a little because before I joined Aviva, actually I was very much tied to the B2C world. I was an omnichannel analyst, uh, with IDC back when omnichannel was still a, ah, widely debated term. No one quite wanted to agree if that was the right way to describe how to join up, uh, customer experiences and how to make sure that every touch point that a consumer had with a retail brand was consistent and that they were building that emotional connection with the brand through those customer experiences. And look, because retailers, they've been running these, these kind of experiential, emotional marketing playbooks for years and they've had to, they had to, they needed to rethink the way that they did marketing because of That E commerce boom because of that proliferation of, you know, digital experience and digital E commerce sales as well. So you know, if you think about the Apple Store many, many years ago now, it wasn't just a shop anymore, it was a stage. And if you think about Niketown, you think about Selfridges, they have these event floors, they have these immersive pop ups, you have cafes and shops these days. And I think the insights that retailers learnt really early is that experience can also be the product. It's really about how you feel when you're in those spaces and the way that you feel really shape then how you feel about the brand. And I think B2B is really catching up on this. As we've spoken about, there's so much proliferation of digitization, uh, of touch points points and especially, you know, since COVID I think one of the things to, to also think about is that culturally people are changing the way that they think as well. That that physical encounter since COVID has become as, as we said earlier, really rare and precious. So if the sales rep is showing up, these things then stand out. If the executive is attending a meal, these things become different because everything is happening in digital and that B2B buyer has changed. You know, that person that's signing off on your big tech contract is also a consumer. They've also, you know, they've also been a consumer their whole life and have seen the way that retailers and brands speak to them. And beyond that there's also a shift since COVID and that people are uh, they're really prioritizing experiences over material possessions. And you'll see this a lot in the news, it's discussed a lot. They are looking for, you know, greater happiness, uh, and freedom from being detached from all of these material goods around them. They're really focused on, you know, creating memories and really nurturing relationships. So we're at this inflection point I think for B2B marketing where retail has kind of shown, shown the way culturally there is a shift in the way that people are thinking and the way that they want to experience life rather than, you know, having these material goods. And I think there's a term for it, it's experientialism. So experiential marketing isn't too far away from that. And marketing really does need to be aligned to these cultural shifts in order to stay competitive as well. So you know, there's more to it, there's more going on out there in the world that kind of intersects with this proliferation of AI and digital content as well. So, again, just coming back to it, I think this is, this is just a really good time for. For people to be starting to think about this within their marketing mix. The existing marketing m have.

Karen Lloyd: Yeah, exactly. To close those final deals with the, with the, with the 50 people that you've got there at the end, sort of like tacking with ABM or something else. So, yeah, absolutely. No, it's a lot of things you resonated with me, actually, that you've said there. And one of the things actually is I think professional services companies have been doing this probably the longest. And, uh, you know, I used to do a lot with professional services companies when I first started my career, and I remember going to their offices in London and even just the feel of them m were quite different to other places. You know, their water fountains in reception and like all this other thing. And you, you came through and you're like, oh, my goodness, I trust. You know, like there was something about the whole experience of being in their office and someone coming along with a trolley with like biscuits and like, you felt like you were in a hotel, you know, in that area. And I thinking that was probably likened and that was probably back in the 90s. And I think, funny enough, they probably cut back on all of that now, but it's going back perhaps in a cycle. So, yeah, it's interesting. So, uh, you know, what I'm saying is this is not necessarily a new thing, but it's recycling and people reiterating, as you said, based on cultural differences and things that needed to be done at the time in a tough market, when you have to stand out, when, you know, as a company, there's probably lots of sales people chasing the same, you know, three different companies all chasing and trying to close the deal with somebody. And it's like, what sets you aside to get that over the line?

Chrissie Bardwell: How do you stand out? Exactly. Yeah.

Karen Lloyd: Also having a good product would be good, but you know, that that's a given.

Chrissie Bardwell: Good product helps.

Karen Lloyd: So what we're not saying in this podcast is ditch your AI. Let's move on to this strategy. This is a mix of things. So let's not have the death of AI. So let's talk about some positive things about what you are using for AI and where companies should be using it.

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah, I mean, AI is genuinely transformative for marketing operations. I'm hearing stats that are, uh, you know, it's still very, very new for a lot of teams. And I'm hearing stats that AI for content generation for example, um, is saving teams 90% of their time in content generation. And that's a real tangible value. And I think what's important is that it really frees up then headspace for what you can do, that you know, the things that actually really require a human. So the way that I think about it is AI can handle kind of the infrastructure, operational repeatable processes, but humans still need to handle the meaning. So you can use AI for content at scale, you do need to still check. You can't just use AI and to send it out and hope for the best. We do need that human touch still on anything that comes out of AI. It's not perfect but you know, support around segmentation, around market research, analysis, the speed at which you can gather that information. Now when you used to have to need a, you know, consultant, a consultant firm or an analyst firm to support you, there's so much more out there now that you can do at speed. And I've been using it a lot actually recently to ensure that we're really at the forefront of uh, best practices when it comes to performance tracking and marketing. For example, you know, what does good look like around the cost of acquisition for a highly engaged C suite prospect contact, for example, you can just stick that information in, put that prompt in there and you get that information back very quickly. So AI is brilliant for that. But there are still, you know, human LED moments that coming back to the experiential marketing bit that really do help to shape how someone feels about your brand. And uh, if we look at AI and the impact that it has had on the industry, you know, there's a lot of fear and rightly so, I think particularly around marketing agencies, that AI was going to come in and just be able to, you know, replicate image creation, be able to pick up that work and that those industries were going to suffer. That it would really devastate, particularly in a creative agencies because it can cut, you know, production time, automation, execution, et cetera. And I think in some respects AI has impacted the industry in these expected ways. But at the same time, you know, actually creative agency is a big catch all. If you hone in on best of breed creative agencies like illustration agencies, what's actually happened is demand there has gone up because these brands are uh, now drowning in this AI sameness. There's this same esthetic, you know, that you get, you can recognize an AI image most of the time, well, it's getting better, but most of the time you can kind of recognize an AI image and some major Consumer brands have even tested this. They've gone out with campaigns that are on a pipeline, apologetically, AI. They are as AI as they can be and they've faced huge amounts of backlash from this. Consumers are really pushing back. And it does mean that actually these kind of more premium, distinctive, handcrafted, original, creative ideas are actually really blossoming in this world of AI because particularly luxury brands, if you look at Hermes, ah, in particular, they're using artists. Go and have a look at their Instagram page. It's amazing. They, they, uh, bring in artists, they promote artists. They use those artists in all of their material and all of their campaigns. Jimmy Choo has just released something very similar as well. And you'll see it really, particularly across the luxury landscape. They want something that isn't generated by AI and is very clearly handcrafted, very clearly precise, and time has gone into it and people have really thought about it. So lots of great things that I can do and lots of areas where, again, it provides an opportunity for competitive advantage as well.

Karen Lloyd: Yeah, exactly. And, uh, I think a really good point is that sometimes AI makes it too perfect, you know, like, you know, when you're doing reports and it makes it seem so easy and perfect. And a good example of this is I had someone that came to me, they've been struggling. I do coaching, I do interview coaching as well as recruiting. And she came to me and she'd been for 15 interviews and she hadn't got it. And she was in tears and she's like, nobody wants me. I don't know what I'm doing. So I sat down and we did a mock interview. And her interview answers were so perfect. And I said, why did you. Where'd you get them? She'd. I. I got the AI to write it and she was reading it almost and had scripted it and I could tell, but she sounded like a robot as she was saying it. And she was talking about how wonderful the sales and marketing team and what the idealistic thing of how sales and marketing work together. And I said, in a real world, no one sales and marketing team are perfect. You'd be much better at an interview to be human and say, actually we did struggle with sales and actually this is how we overcame it. And she was like, oh, I could admit that. And I was like, yes, because you're a human being. And that's just a really good point of where sometimes AI can just over egg the pudding, if you know what I mean.

Chrissie Bardwell: Yeah. And actually it's a really good example. I was listening to this podcast and they were talking about the psychology of perfection as you. As you're describing. And somebody there was saying, you know, you're much more likely to create a connection with your interviewer if you've just managed to accidentally spill your coffee across the table because it shows that you're real, it shows that you're. Which is really important in that kind of environment. So, yes, it's interesting how you react

Karen Lloyd: under stress rather than if you started swearing about love coffee, it might not be the right thing, but if you went, oh, dear, never mind, you know, it's just, it's how you overcome a setback, because that's basically human life, isn't it? Oh, thank you, Chrissy. That's been such a useful discussion.

Chrissie Bardwell: Great, thank you.

Karen Lloyd: And if you can think of any one or two people that's going to get value from listening to this, it might be a colleague, a friend or someone who just needs persuading on doing experiential marketing, please share this with them. I'm sure they'll get some value. I'm really lucky to be a podcast host and speak to brilliant marketeers like Chrissie. And as a passionate marketeer myself, I'm also a headhunter and the managing director of Armstrong, um, Lloyd. We are sales and marketing search firm, um, so if you're looking to grow your team and you would like a conversation with what the current market looks like, please drop me an email at Karen Armstrong Lloyd.co.uk in the meantime, keep shining that spotlight on marketing.