Chicago: The Ultimate Hotspot for Experiential Marketing Events

A vibrant city with a thriving arts and culture scene, Chicago is also the third-largest city in the United States and a popular destination for tourists, sports fans, music enthusiasts, and art lovers.

Brands large and small also find that the Windy City is a great choice for brand activations and pop-ups, and the city’s major events and iconic destinations host numerous experiential events each year. Here are some examples of locations and events, plus case studies of successful activations in the Chicago area.

Diverse Events, Massive Audiences

Chicago hosts a variety of major arts, culinary, athletics, and other events throughout the year, catering to diverse interests. These include

• Taste of Chicago, an iconic food festival showcasing the city’s diverse culinary scene
• Chicago Air and Water Show, featuring aerial acrobatics, military displays, and water stunts, attracting thousands of spectators
• Chicago Blues Festival, celebrating the rich blues heritage of the city
• Chicago Jazz Festival, dedicated to the vibrant jazz scene in Chicago
• Chicago Marathon, one of the world’s largest
• Chicago Theatre Week, an annual event offering discounted tickets to Broadway shows, opera, dance, and other performances

Since 1991, one of the largest of these cultural events has been the music festival Lollapalooza. Once a touring event hitting numerous U.S. cities, in 2005 Lollapalooza settled in Chicago’s Grant Park as its home base. With its large, youthful population, Chicago is a prime location for events like Lollapalooza, which draws as many as 400,000 fans each year — a perfect platform for brand activations and pop-ups that test the limits of what experiential marketing can offer.

Famous Art, Architecture, and Other Locations

Chicago boasts renowned museums housing art, science, and historical collections and exhibits; a vibrant theatre scene; a wide range of culinary experiences, from deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs to fine dining and international cuisine; and a thriving craft beer and spirits scene, with numerous breweries and distilleries offering tastings and tours, among other attractions.

One of Chicago’s major draws is its architecture, including the landmark-studded skyline featuring iconic buildings like the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center. The city’s numerous parks include Millennium Park, home of Cloud Gate — aka the Bean — a striking silver sculpture; the Lake Michigan shoreline; and green spaces like Grant Park and Lincoln Park. Rich in history and culture, Chicago is one of the nation’s most beautiful cities and a welcoming venue for experiential marketers looking to tap a friendly, diverse audience.

Case Studies: Chicago Activations

Sunscoop/Supergoop: Helping Locals and Tourists Beat the Heat

When we think about summertime activations and pop-ups, often the first locations that come to mind are coastal cities like New York, Miami, and Los Angeles, or major Southern cities like Atlanta and Dallas. But as locals and tourists will attest, Chicago is a popular summertime destination, with lots to do and see amid temperatures that rival any other in the nation.

For a limited-time promotional partnership, sun protection brand Supergoop and ice cream brand Sunscoop worked with Promobile to create a mobile dual brand activation centered around product sampling. Vintage-style ice cream trucks and a new ice cream flavor developed for the occasion created an authentic summertime vibe and delivered more than 53,000 sunscreen samples and 16,000 ice cream samples in Chicago and three other U.S. cities.

Lemon Perfect: Tapping into Chicago’s Youthful Market

The fastest-growing enhanced-water brand in the United States, Lemon Perfect wanted to reach a target audience of hydration-obsessed Millennial and Gen Z consumers. The brand chose geographically diverse cities with strong populations of these health-focused consumers, then strategically positioned branded vehicles where they congregate. One of its stops: Chicago. The goal: to put Lemon Perfect in the hands of as many members of its target audience as possible through a mobile product sampling campaign.

Sampling is a time-tested, research-proven way to entice customers to try a new or unfamiliar product, which makes it an ideal tactic for a brand looking to boost awareness and set itself apart from other enhanced-water brands. Promobile designed and launched a fleet of branded vehicles for the nationwide roadshow, which ultimately handed out 300,000 samples.

Experience Kissimmee: Creating a Presence in Winter

Chicago winters are notoriously cold, windy, and unforgiving — which makes winter a “cooler” time of year for experiential marketing events in the city. But where many organizations might see a limitation, Experience Kissimmee — the tourism authority for Central Florida’ Osceola County — saw an opportunity to pitch Florida as a great vacation spot for Chicagoans ready for relief from the wind and cold.

Experience Kissimmee’s unique experiential campaign installed a zipline in Millennium Park in the peak of winter. Under the tagline “Escape Cold. Warm Your Heart,” the event featured free zipline rides, hot cocoa, and photo ops with a baby alligator, according to a blog post by xola.com.

“This campaign is an excellent example of how adventure stunts can effectively draw attention,” said xola.com. “This campaign in particular was successful in introducing Chicagoans to Orlando´s promise of warmth and excitement.”

Promobile Marketing is a dynamic experiential marketing agency based in New York City. For over a decade, Promobile Marketing has collaborated with a range of brands—from budding startups to major CPG brands—on immersive marketing campaigns. Get in touch to discuss your next project.