How many times have you taken on a coupon or accepted a promotional gift, purely because it’s FREE?  The coupon for a FREE pair of gardening gloves invariably ends up on the table by the car keys and then sidles off to the bin, the t-shirt that declares your love of 4GB storage drives possibly ends up being slept in, and then painted in, but ultimately ends up cast aside.  With such little love for the bits and bobs that we collect on the commute or at the shops, we must ask ourselves why we accept them in the first place.

The answer is in the psychology. The sum of zero, FREE, is an emotional trigger, a source of irrational excitement that brings a burst, although somewhat temporary, of excitement and one that turns out to be far more tempting than discounts.  Numerous studies show that a huge upward swing is achieved in sales when a product is listed free as opposed to heavily discounted, even when that difference can be only £0.01.  FREE is better than £0.01. Hugely better it turns out.

Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics, and author of the book Predictably Irrational, believes;

‘Most transactions have an upside and a downside, but when something is FREE! we forget the downside.  FREE! gives us such an emotional charge that we perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable that it really is.  Why? I think it’s because humans are intrinsically afraid of loss.  The real allure of FREE! is tied to this fear.  There’s no visible possibility of loss when we choose a FREE! item (it’s free)’

So what is the relevance to experiential marketing and sampling?  Experiential campaigns and sampling activity should always have a communicated element of free.  Instructing promotional staff to say ‘try a sample of’ rather than ‘try a FREE sample of’ is to miss the psychological trigger entirely that would lead too much higher interactions. Brand managers often instruct promotional staff to shy away from communicating FREE under the assumption that this will result in a deluge of ‘free loaders’, and that people will engage in the experience for the wrong reason.  This is missing the point.  Most of our targeted audience will be unaware of why the product or service we’ve created an experience around is awesome, we need to encourage them to participate, in whatever way we can, and then rely on the excellence of the experience and the promotional staff, to convert that consumer.  FREE is that enticement.

The concept of zero doesn’t just translate to pounds and pence either, potential consumers assess the value of the time spent doing one thing against another.  When planning an experience, time should be spent understanding how to create an obvious upside to the experience that will trigger a positive response from the consumer when they make their ‘time better spent’ assessment.  Whether it’s having a particularly engaging brand ambassador to welcome passers by, or the promise of FREE within the experience itself.

Planners, experiential agencies and brand managers need to recognise the huge value in FREE and leverage it to its full potential.

These four are intent in overcoming any obstacles in their way while working together throughout. And what will they be doing with their soon-to-come profits? Supporting their families, constructing adequate houses and sending their kids to school, naturally.

Planners exist within marketing agencies to ensure that they find truisms within consumer’s minds and behaviours that allows creative work to be as relevant as possible. In plain English that means identifying insights that can then feed the creative teams.

Planners have been a permanent feature of advertising agencies for over 25 years. The function has spread through to below the line agencies and to be quite honest any agency worth its billable hours.

So the big question is why have experiential agencies still not caught onto this?

First a brief history of planning…

Beginning in 1965, Stanley Pollitt felt that account managers were using information incompetently because the researcher was not involved in the campaign process. Because of this, Pollitt suggested that a specially trained researcher should work with the account manager as an equal partner.

Stephen King then moved the concept on slightly, believing that clients deserved a better way of doing things and proposed a process of advertising development that had a little less gut feeling and a little more scientific foundation. In 1968, J.Walter Thompson (JWT) established a new department called “account planning”, coined by King.

Ok history lesson over. In short, account planning exists for the sole purpose of creating campaigns that truly connect with consumers.

Surely that is the objective of every-single piece of experiential activity that is put out? So by definition there is absolutely no reason why this function is not being worked into the DNA of more experiential agencies.

Some may argue that the industry is too small and clients budgets are nowhere near those of their older far wealthier advertising relatives. Some may also argue that Senior Account Handlers and founders form this role and that there simply aren’t planners around who understand the discipline.

Both could be true however, if the experiential industry really wants to compete for clients budgets and ultimately create measurable campaigns that truly impact consumers behaviour. Then agencies better start using the left side of their brains and hire planners into their teams.

I dream of a world where experiential agencies lead the creative and strategic thinking on the majority of pitches rather than the minority. We are constantly talking about the need for a greater level of ROI in experiential and neither of these things will be achieved until planners are a permanent feature within experiential agencies.

This year we’re focussing intently on maximising our core competence, the delivery of incredible staff on to activity with the very best levels of consultancy and account handling support. This focus ensures that our questions are directed entirely on one outcome, pleasing our customer. Part of this focus requires that we go beyond what customers want to ‘buy’ from us, and understand what they want to achieve through us. Awesome promotional and hospitality staff on the ground.

The result of this focus is that we’re positioning our brand to focus on what we do well, managing relationships with staff and clients that ultimately delivers the very best in theatre staffing solution for experiential agencies. We focus on staffing, our partners on their core competences.

To achieve this, we work with the very best partners, from staff through to suppliers and clients, all who share the same values and ambition as us, all of whom contribute to completing a complex puzzle.

By mastering our delivery, and not trying to be master of all, we remain credible and have created an ecosystem that has built considerable value through partnership, a partnership that extends our reach without diluting our delivery.

Encouragingly for us, our client partners recognise the benefit of this networked approach, focussing on delivering awesome experiential work rather than trying to deliver marginal profit increases by bringing all delivery in-house and becoming jack of all trades. Further still, our partnerships appear to be a healthy ground for the invention of new service offerings that the network as a whole can benefit from.

‘Interestingly, highly networked enterprises are 50% more likely than other organisations to report market share gains against their competitors and higher profit margins. Boundaryless business multiplies value’ www.wolfollins.com

Each month we loan a substantial amount to one person looking to expand his or her business, and for April 2012 we have chosen Eugenia from Huancayo, Peru.  A wife and mother of two children, Eugenia is at an age when most of us would be planning our upcoming retirement. She, however, is in the midst of expanding her business! Not only does Eugenia clean at the local city hall and raise livestock and crops to sell at the market, but she also makes brilliant ornaments made of beautiful flowers to sell in the city centre. Once Eugenia has raised some extra cash through KIVA, she will be putting the money towards additional flowers to help her business grow and tuck some savings away in the bank. A hard working woman holding down four jobs and raising a family? Here’s to that.

For our March entrepreneur of the month, we have chosen Ajith, a hardworking mother of 4.

Ajith lives in Bor which is in the Republic of South Sudan, She sells food from a stall, and has been in business for four years. She is 30 years old, married, and has four children, two of them are still in school.

Ajith would like to purchase additional bean and sugar stock for her food stall to keep her children in education.

We wish her all the best from all of us at Mash Towers.

Provided with a shell of a venue, it was over the Events Team at MASH’s remit to provide the sound, lighting, bar, alcohol, dancers, bands, bar & cloakroom staff, hostesses, DJ’s and most importantly….the guests!! Over 350 of our field staff and client partners braved the snow and came along to enjoy a sensational array of entertainment and energy. Along the way, we also asked a few people about what they thought about working for and with MASH.

As well as the ‘buzz’ around the upcoming Olympic & Paralympic Games, we have also seen a huge upsurge in event staff requirements across the UK and want to make sure we are well placed to deal with this demand.

There is no better time to join the MASH Books as we continue and develop our commitment to our staff of providing interesting, fun work on behalf of some of the world’s coolest brands, with a supportive office team behind you every step of the way, competitive pay rates (always paying on time!) and easy and effective communication from the off.

Here are the dates and locations for the Interviews – Generally 3 or 4 sessions per day. Get Involved!

Mon 27th Feb: LONDON

Sat 3rd Mar: NOTTINGHAM

Tue 6th Mar: LONDON

Wed 7th Mar: LONDON

Mon 12th Mar: NEWCASTLE

Tue 13th March: GLASGOW

Thur 15th March: BIRMINGHAM

Fri 16th March: BRISTOL

Sat 17th March: CARDIFF (1 slot at 1.00pm ONLY)

Tue 20th March: LONDON DAY

Wed 21st March:EXETER

Tue 27th March: LONDON DAY 5

Wed 28th March: LONDON DAY 6

Thur 29th March: BRIGHTON

Fri 30th March: MANCHESTER

Sat 31st March : LEEDS

Tue 3rd April: LONDON DAY 7

Wed 4th April: LONDON DAY 8

Thurs 5th April (Morning Only): PETERBOROUGH

Thur 5th April (Afternoon Only) NORWICH

Tue 10th April: LONDON DAY 9

Wed 11th April: LONDON DAY 10

Thu 12th April: BOURNEMOUTH

Mon 16th April: LONDON DAY 11

Fri 20th April: BIRMINGHAM

Please spread the word around the excellent people that you know and get booked in to one of the above sessions by emailing our UK Brand Champion :: Chrissy Dobbie – chrissyd@mashmarketing.co.uk or via our bespoke Recruitment page on Facebook

Paper Fortress: 2009 – 2011 Reflection from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.

Paul is a timber dealer who is married with 2 children. He began his business 8 years ago by selling scrap timber and later moved on and purchased logging machines. He looks forward to being an exporter and importer of timber and timber products in the future. The extra income from this loan will enable Paul to educate and feed his children.

Maria lives with her 2 sons and her father. She is also taking care of her 3 nieces because their mother, her sister, died four months ago. Her business involves the sale of antojitos (snacks) including roasted bananas and empanadas. The loan will help her stock her business. Maria’s goal is for her business to be prosperous so that she can help the entire family and cover household expenses.

We wish Paul and Maria all the best from all of us at Mash Towers and a very Happy Christmas.

Watch this space for next month’s Kiva story.