When Continental Airlines talks to business fliers at events these days, it’s now through college-educated field staffers. Before Starbucks launched a fleet of street teams last month for its new Chantico beverage, crew members spent three days inside its stores. Apple Computer teaches trade show reps how to operate Macs, whether they’ll use them during the show or not. And if on-premise crews don’t drink Ketel One vodka, they can’t work for Ketel One.
If the growing number of marketers getting more involved in the selection, training, and execution of their event staffs is any indication, companies are indeed beginning to take their brand ambassadors more seriously. “First impressions are lasting impressions,” says Marcia Bauman, president of Framingham, MA-based staffing company The Bauman Group.
Some say the push to foster a higher-quality conversation with the target is driving the increased attention to staffing. “We can no longer successfully deliver our message through an $8-an-hour college student,” says Wes Reese, Continental’s director of sports marketing. “A quality interaction requires a quality interactor.”
Others argue that it’s a matter of brands protecting their event-marketing investments. “As event spends grow, involvement with the customer grows,” says Dennis Murray, president of Seattle-based agency Passage Events. “As involvement increases, marketers are realizing they have to ensure they are stepping up their brand ambassadors.”
Whatever the reason, some say the increased scrutiny is long overdue. “The importance of the brand ambassador isn’t growing,” says Brad Wirz, senior vp-experiential marketing with New York City-based event shop Euro RSCG. “Marketers are simply now realizing the importance.”
Quality Quotient
Brand marketers who are upgrading the quality of field staffs are replacing some of the typical eye candy with personable people who can “actually have a conversation,” says Shelly Justice, president of Atlanta-based Convention Models & Talent.
Not only are events now used to push a message in addition to a product, but the products associated with the messages are more sophisticated. When AOL launched 9.0 Optimized, they needed Web-savvy staffers who could talk up the service, Web surfing, and answer not only Internet questions (does it have a pop-up blocker?) but computer questions as well (will this run on XP?).
“It’s about more than a pretty face these days,” says Tim Ridgeway, a director of business development at Pepsi-Cola Co., who handles many of the soda giant’s trade show programs. “At the end of the day, we want people to walk away not knowing whether they just interacted with a PepsiCo employee or a contract worker.”
On street campaigns and mobile tours, trade shows and grassroots fan fests, and everything in between, field staffers have grown up. They are more intelligent—because staffing agencies are aggressively screening the piles of applicants who come in each week—more personable, and able to do more. “Staffers must now be able to understand our company and our phones, explain how to use picture messaging, and help with logistics,” says Lucie Pathmann, Alltel’s director of sponsorships and publicity. “They cannot be shy, and they have to be at ease going into a crowd and talking us up.”
Marketers in general are getting “more refined and specific about who represents them,” says Larry Hess, president of Redondo Beach, CA-based staffing agency Encore Nationwide. “They are putting less pressure on price and more pressure on having the right people.”
The reasoning? The more relevant a brand ambassador is to the target audience, the more authentic the interaction will be. The Home Depot’s credit card acquisition teams in San Francisco are primarily Asian; in Miami, they’re mostly Hispanic. Samplers on SoBe’s Love Bus don’t just look like the target—with tattoos, earrings in places you don’t tell gramma about, and iPods. “They are the target,” says Verna Cooper, director of marketing with St. Louis staffing house Market Partners.
Staff requests are getting more particular by the day as brands look to create armies of staffers their targets can’t help but engage. “One minute we can be sourcing motorcycle-licensed hotties for a p.r. event in New York City, the next we’re [sending] half-naked street teams of 20 male actors sporting body paint into several markets, and the next we’re finding females within a two-inch height requirement,” says Jessica Browder-Stackpoole, president of EventPro Strategies, a Scottsdale, AZ-based staffing agency. “Every single day is different.”
In addition to getting more specific about who their agencies hire, marketers are getting more involved in the actual selection process. Those who used to simply flip through headshots now are getting applicants in the door. When Snapple Beverage Group’s Nantucket Nectars was planning a pair of mobile tours, Stamford, CT-based J. Brown Events came up with the list of staffing contenders. “I then went myself to meet with the proposed hires,” says Nantucket director of marketing Jim Crook. “Only when I was satisfied with them were they accepted as brand ambassadors.”
And just as marketers are getting more involved with their event crews, crews are being asked to get more involved with the marketers. Brand ambassadors once signed out after they finished working an event; now, they’re being asked to provide insight about the programs they’re conducting. After hundreds or thousands of conversations at an event, they’re the perfect people to ask about whether the target is receptive to the message, what’s working, and what’s not. “The feedback from these people may be more valuable than anything else they do,” says Reese. “It’s that good.”
Carolyn Pollock, eBay’s senior manager of consumer marketing, agrees. “It gives us an interesting perspective because the staffers are not as close to the brand,” she says. “These brand ambassadors work for different companies all the time. They usually have an opinion worth listening to.”
Naturally, higher quality ambassadors cost more. Pay ranges for general staffers are $17 to $25 per hour, and $30 to $45 per for regional managers and touring crews, but many say it’s worth it. “We’ll pay more for someone who can have an intelligent conversation,” says Michael Hammer, senior manager in charge of Aquafina at Pepsi.
One other tidbit: The event staff has traditionally been comprised mostly of women, but it’s getting more male. Companies are making more of an effort to better match the target base’s gender split. (And quite honestly, as event programs become more labor-intensive the guys are typically more willing to sign on for heavy lifting during setup and breakdown.)
Ready for Action
A deeper involvement on the front lines requires more upfront preparation for field crews. Brand managers, as a result, are slowly beginning to embrace more staff training.
Some are treating event staffers as they would corporate employees, putting crews through immersion training to equip them with not only corporate and product information, but also a taste of the brand and corporate culture. Starbucks’ Chantico crews spent three days in stores watching customers, learning the menus, and helping baristas. “If the customer encounters our street team at an event, that conversation has to be consistent with what goes on in our stores,” says Brad Davis, the company’s vp-advertising and promotions. “We want our temporary staffers to be as knowledgeable as our employees.”
Other companies make training more social than educational, taking crews out for team dinners and playing brand games after dessert. On the final night of their seven-day training at Lego’s headquarters, for instance, mobile crews head over to event manager Vince Rubino’s house for a barbecue. In cases when bringing the staff to corporate isn’t an option, companies are bringing the training to the staff. Cadillac, for example, flew product specialists out to train field staffers in each market during its recent STS tour.
But much of today’s staff training is still not face to face. Phone training is getting somewhat better, with companies investing in multiple tele-education sessions, instead of just one. The Hain-Celestial Group’s Terra Chips, for example, used a combination of phone and email training to prep street teams for a 16-market tour rolling out now. “Not every event program requires immersion training,” reasons Marc Bessinger, president of New York City-based field shop YES, Inc.
Others are leaning on technology to help enhance and streamline training. Web-based programs can take users through a campaign and then administer a test they must pass to get hired. Famous Footwear recently mailed CD-ROM training kits to field staffers working a grand opening tour. The discs included instructions for setting up stores and talking to shoppers, then took recipients through a 75-question quiz. “We looked at the scores to determine who was ready for the program and who needed a follow-up phone call with more training,” says Heather Gaecke, director of QuickStrike, the New Berlin, WI staffing unit of Omnicom’s Radiate Group.
But training still has a long way to go, according to staffing companies. The process varies by brand, by program, by budget, and by the amount of time available. “It’s still the most overlooked piece of staffing. Nobody is putting a line item in the budget for training,” says Hess. “Many clients are content with quick phone training or a 15-minute on-site training session. They shouldn’t be.”
Mixed Bag
As temporary brand ambassadors have found more permanent assignments, more marketers are sending corporate employees to events as volunteer staffers. Crook says Nantucket Nectars will have employees, agency staff, and distributors’ staff work events this year. “We want to see which delivers the most in the end.”
And after years of being asked, marketers are finally starting to get out of the office and visit their events and staffs in person. In addition to scheduled, announced stops, they’re mystery shopping their own events in an effort to get unvarnished pictures of their brand presence.
Staffing companies have been quick to capitalize on the surge in business. Most have upgraded their databases and are screening more candidates. The smarter ones are investing in additional back-end systems and devising electronic reporting offerings, ROI tracking, and e-communications. The next trend? Look for field agencies to introduce Web-based sourcing software that will allow clients to request, screen, and book their staff at the click of a button. Once those systems are up and running, the evolution of today’s event staffer will march on. “As event marketing grows, marketers will look for more ways to get more our of their brand ambassadors,” says Dominique Bonavita, manager of strategic alliances and promotions at Royal Caribbean.
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