Innovative methods of marketing - Experiential marketing, Tissue-pack marketing

Experiential marketing — interaction with product – also called Relationship Marketing was first defined as a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on sales transactions. As a practice, Relationship Marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages. With the growth of the internet and mobile platforms, Relationship Marketing has continued to evolve and move forward as technology opens more collaborative and social communication channels. This includes tools for managing relationships with customers that goes beyond simple demographic and customer service data. Relationship Marketing extends to include Inbound Marketing efforts, (a combination of search optimization and Strategic Content), PR, Social Media and Application Development. Brands are now also being driven by the customer themselves, through experiential elements like Converse's co-creation marketing or Nike's iD system, design your own shoes. Nike came up with an innovative idea to gauge customers by giving them an experience of being themselves. Customers can design their shoes according to their likes and dislikes, material, colour, shape etc… which was definitely creating an identity for themselves. In India many companies have tried out the experiential marketing successfully. One Indian company tried out a concept called Create your Own paint. Many paint buyers find it very difficult to decide on the shades provided by the company. To give the customers more choice the company designed paint mixers. In these specially designed shops the customers can decide on a shade or a color by themselves using a computer. Once the shade or color is decided all that the customer has to decide the quantity and the exact shade desired. The paint would be delivered to the customer within a few minutes.

Tissue-pack marketing: Companies use small, portable tissue packages to move advertising copy directly into consumers' hands. About 4 billion of these packages of tissues are distributed on the streets annually in Japan—largely outside of subway stations.

The concept of tissue-pack marketing was first developed in Japan. Its origins date back to the late 1960s when Hiroshi Mori, the founder of a paper-goods manufacturer in Kōchi Prefecture called Meisei Industrial Co., was looking for ways to expand demand for paper products. At the time, the most common marketing freebies in Japan was boxes of matches. These were often given away at banks and then used by women in the kitchen.

Mori figured tissues would have even wider appeal than the matches, and as a result he developed the machinery to fold and package tissues into easy-to-carry, pocket-size packs. The new product was marketed only as a form of advertising and was not sold to consumers.