B-to-C Events

Ten years ago, a small subsection of corporate marketing departments began to fall in love with a fairly new and extremely unproven discipline called event marketing. From auto and financial-services to beverage, commercial aviation, retail and technology, it started to grow like religion.

The year is 2002. “American Idol’s” debut fever is spreading across TV sets all across America. The second installments of the “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of The Rings” trilogies are duking it out at the box office (as nerds everywhere rejoice—in Elvish). And somewhere in Berlin, Michael Jackson is dangling his son Prince Michael II off a hotel balcony with a blanket over his head.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Goosebumps, the children’s mystery series by R.L. Stine, Scholastic Entertainment on Oct. 25 held an event in New York City that had a local third grade class solving challenges as they traveled through a 2,100-square-foot maze made of corn stalks. The event, dubbed Trick or Read!, capitalized on Halloween to promote the importance of reading.

Resident Evil is a household name in the gaming world, but in promoting the Oct. 2 release of the latest version, Resident Evil 6 “No Hope Left”, developer Capcom wanted to make sure a wider audience was introduced to “the dramatic horror experience of 2012.” So, Capcom activated a pop-up event designed to resemble a human meat market that took place Sept. 28 and 29 at the famed Smithfield Market in East London.

Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Scooby Doo and Cesar Millan, of TV’s “The Dog Whisperer” fame, executed their second National Family Pack Walk, held on Sept. 29 in Washington, D.C. This year’s event was four times the size of last year’s inaugural pack walk and expanded nationally to reach more families. It attracted more than 10,000 pet owners and pets that completed a one-and-a-half mile course then participated in kid-friendly activities designed to support the Millan Foundation’s cause of helping abused and neglected dogs.