Barilla embraces at-home experiential.

COVID-19 has drastically affected the experiential marketing industry; lockdowns and distancing measures have forced marketers to reassess how their brand can deliver responsible activations and campaigns.

Brands and AORs have been struggling to reallocate their experiential budgets… How can companies build effective experiences while people are trapped in their homes? How can a brand stand out by providing their audience with an engaging ‘at home experience’?

One of the benefits of experiential marketing is ‘versatility’. There is no particular format to follow and the vertical lends itself to endless combinations of creativity and execution. Brands in the COVID era can deliver disruptive engagements from anywhere and at any time.

Most recently, Italian pasta brand Barilla tackled this problem through an audio-first perspective by creating a kitchen-timer experience on Spotify. Barilla built a series of playlists whose durations correspond to the cooking time of most of their pasta.

The campaign is contextually relevant; it is widely known that Italians are particular about their food and traditions — especially pasta. In order to cook the perfect al dente pasta, you need to pay attention to timing.

What better way to tell people how to cook their pasta than a guided playlist/kitchen timer? These playlists range from 9 to 11 minutes in length and are comprised of popular Italian music genres.

Listening to ‘mixtape spaghetti’, ‘pleasant melancholy penne’ or ‘moody day linguine’ not only helps the audience in cooking the perfect pasta, but it entertains them while they’re waiting. It also has an added bonus of discovering new artists and covers.

The reason why this, and other at-home experiential campaigns can be successful, is that they offer various modes of active participation that have the ability to connect and form a strong bond between a brand and its audience.

Now is the time to consider leveraging audio-first experiential to engage with your audience in meaningful ways that can educate, entertain, empower and inspire.