Hasta La Creative!

For the Winter Olympics, Chobani set out to give a select group of everyday athletes what Mr. Sabarese called “the workout of their lives” and enlisted them to exhaust their yogurt-fueled quads to power a spectacular light projection celebrating this year’s Olympians. Both efforts aimed to bring the brand, and the message of its above-the-line campaign, a little closer to consumers.

Mr. Sabarese reports to Director of Shopper and Experiential Marketing Mike Messersmith and said experiential marketing has taken a big seat at Chobani for a number of reasons. “It’s the one-two punch that helps link the online and offline world,” he said. “We’re firm believers in actual physical and emotional experiences. The goal is to get consumers to become unprompted evangelists of our brand.”

Mr. Sabarese said Chobani is just getting started with its experiential exploits, yet such efforts decidedly don’t — and won’t — command the larger budgets of a traditional campaign. “From a financial perspective, if we can do a great experience that touches consumers, we can achieve comparable results to other types of advertising at a fraction of the cost,” he said. “If you can create an experience that people are dying to be part of or dying to see, you’re going to get a big bang for your buck.”

Continue reading at AdAge.com