B-to-C Events

It isn’t often that a b-to-b tour gives rise to one that connects with consumers, too. As a matter of fact, it’s quite unusual, says Julie Garlikov, vp-marketing at Torani, the Italian coffee syrup brand. But that’s exactly what happened last year when Torani took to the road with its bottles, cups and blenders, hitting independent coffee houses along the West Coast that use the syrup in their coffees and a few of the distributors who service the accounts.

Nike on April 27 turned New York City’s Times Square into the Broadway Bowl, a full-on, truss-enclosed football field at Broadway and 42nd Street. The brand invited former NFL players, current athletes, cultural influencers, and officers of the NYPD and FDNY to play a 30-minute five-on-five flag football game, to build excitement around the draft and Nike’s new deal with the NFL to design the league’s official team uniforms.

Ford has begun a series of pop-ups in San Francisco, where the brand currently has no formal dealership, to reconnect with consumers and remind them that the brand is on the forefront of technology, sustainability and performance. The first in the series of four Go Further pop-ups was open from April 13 to May 13, and the next opens this month.

Every conversation in the event marketing industry eventually comes around to technology. You want to know what tools are out there to make your jobs easier, make your programs more successful and most crucially, make your target consumers love you the most. We have heard your clarion calls for help and now, with this monthly series, EM’s own Ken Briodagh will collect and codify the hottest, newest, most interesting, best (and sometimes worst) technological doohickeys available to you.

People promoted its “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” issue by creating The People Make Me a Star Beauty Tour that pampered its female readers with a makeover and then put them on a mock cover of the magazine.