Experiential Marketing Agency in Chicago

Sustainable Relationships through Live Experiences

This Is What We Do

We cultivate sustainable relationships through branded experiential campaigns that impact people, not the environment.

We are Situ8.

We Are Situationists

We understand that most businesses are bound to yearly goals and marketing calendars. However, that is not how people experience your brand. Brand loyalty is built overtime and reinforced through personal experiences and word of mouth.

The first step in creating that path is a thorough understanding of your brand, target audience, and the ideal engagement environment.

Situations come in all shapes and sizes - here are just a few we think about daily:

Brand Situations:
A three dimensional analysis that goes beyond understanding your marketing goals and focuses on achieving your overall business objectives.
Consumer Situations:
Most agencies just focus on who the consumer is and what they do. We believe the real opportunity to connect is in understanding the why.
Moment of Truth Situations:
How to ensure your brand is saying and doing the right thing at the right place at the exact right time.

A Sustainable Strategy

Building relationships between brands and consumers isn't too different from building relationships between friends. We create real relationships between brands and consumers through a series of shared, meaningful experiences. This approach allows your brand to develop depth and personality in the eyes of the consumer. Over time, this will manifest itself as brand loyalty.

Where We Situ8

For every situation, there is an idea and for every idea a situation. Depending on what your brand wants to say and who they want to say it to, there is a logical engagement point.

Point of Purchase

Some call it shopping, we call it an opportunity. Sometimes the best place to influence a decision is where it is actually being made.

product sampling, product education, retail-tainment

Point of Passion

It’s not enough to know what they like. You have to share their passion and showcase it for all to see.

music, sports, sponsorship, lifestyle, charity

Point of Proximity

If a brand talks in the woods and no one is around, did it really say anything? Your audience won’t always come to you, so you can’t be afraid to go to them.

mobile marketing, community events, live social networking

Point of Permission

They’ve said they are interested, but that’s just the beginning. Show them their faith and consideration is not misplaced.

email campaign, proprietary events, loyalty programs

Point of Conversation

The creation of a real life personification of your brand that provides an interesting and credible voice.

ambassadors, advocates, amplifiers, and influencers

Ideas in Reality

No matter how clever an idea is on paper, it means nothing to us unless it can work in the real world.

Our ideas are vehicles that engage people with your brand in a unique, relevant, and memorable way that seamlessly fits within their existing reality.

We also provide our brand partners with every eco-friendly option for activating their experiential campaign. This way we are only impacting consumers and not the environment, which ensures a happier reality for all of us.

This is what we're all about

Even more important than what we do is what we stand for. These are 8 things that guide, inspire, and drive us daily.

Honesty: The foundation of great communication whether between client and agency or brand and consumer.

Partnership: We want to be your partner, not vendor, and we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is. Ask us and we’ll tell you more.

Curiosity: Many times the key to finding the solution is first understanding the question.

Value: We deliver the thinking and doing of a big agency while maintaining the pricing and account service of a small agency.

Courage: We don’t believe in risk for risk’s sake. What we do believe is by prioritizing risk, we challenge ourselves to find original ideas.

Sustainability: We have a long term vision that guides the way we think and the way we act.

Proof: ROI is a one year solution. Proof is a long term plan. Proof is consumers embracing your brand; your business is growing, not just now but in the future.

Playfulness: This is our chosen profession and damn it, we are going to have fun doing it.

The Command Center

Pete Kelly, Founder & CEO

Pete's Experience

Erik McKinney, VP

Erik's Experience

Emily Gifford, Talent Director

Emily's Experience

Bobby Buivid, Director of Operations

Bobby's Experience

The Situ8 Blog - What We're Thinking

Our thinking is constantly evolving based on what we see, hear, and experience. This is just a sample.

Interview with Bobby Buivid

Sustainability is a hot topic in almost every industry these days. As experiential marketers, we have been witness to countless wasteful practices that have become common place in our industry. A solution to this problem came to us the day we met Bobby Buivid. Bobby is quickly becoming a leader in sustainable practices in the experiential marketing arena. We were thrilled when he decided to join the team and form a partnership between Situ8 and his company, Zero Events. We wanted to take this opportunity to allow Bobby to share his thoughts and insights on why sustainable practices in experiential marketing should be the rule, not the exception.

Posted by Pete on Monday, July 19, 2010

The Intern’s Perspective

At Situ8, we take a lot of pride in our internship program and wanted to give our interns a chance to share their thoughts as they go through the process. The first intern blogger, David Grothouse, is about to begin his senior year at the University of Chicago where he is an Economics major with a Philosophy minor. It may seem strange given his chosen education path that he is interning for an experiential marketing agency. If you see it from his perspective, it’s actually a perfect fit.

Posted by Erik on Friday, July 02, 2010