A Study to Develop Experiential Marketing Through Case Analysis of Local Festivals

This study analyses two festivals while focusing on Schmitt’s experiential marketing theory. “Tenth Dankook University Industry-University Cooperation (LINC 3.0) Pleasure (樂) Festival,” planned by the LINC 3.0 project group at Dankook University; and “Autumn Night’s Healing Music Festival,” hosted by the Gangbuk District Office. This study examines the importance of experiential booths installed at those festivals and the experiential marketing outcome. The Pleasure Festival was planned with the key theme of employment, start-ups, and industry-university cooperation. Local young adults (including university students in their 20s) were the main visitor segment. Hence, factors that could grab their attention, including food and beverage, giveaways, and tarot, combined with content that could provide practical support for employment and start-ups, such as employment and start-up mentoring, guidance to policies, and matching company managers. The Music Festival adequately utilized experiential marketing factors to meet its concept, the April 19 Revolution, so visitors could enjoy the festival while being reminded of the April 19 Revolution. In particular, it implemented full-scale sensory marketing to create the overall atmosphere and image and promoted actions through experiential booths. This study confirmed that festivals can be successfully held in addition to establishing a concept when experiential marketing factors correspond with the concept and when exciting content is provided to visitors. From a sensory, sensibility, perceptional, behavioral, and relational perspective, experience provides new values, creates synergistic effects, and assumes a role that enables visitors to become participants with active and sensible characteristics from a new perspective. Simultaneously, it is an “anti-manneristic” mechanism that helps festivals secure originality and differentiation from other festivals. This study is significant because it measured the five experiential marketing factors, identified the ongoing communication during this process, and highlighted the importance of experiential factors for successful festivals.