THE marketing landscape is changing and two events caught my attention last weekend that clearly demonstrated this.

All across the UK people came together for outdoor lunch parties on Sunday, celebrating the first-ever Big Lunch festival, events to get communities eating together and building community cohesion.

Dreamt up by the team at Cornwall’s Eden Project, supported by brands including EDF Energy and Mastercard, it is thought up to 2m people joined in. The Big Lunch had a simple purpose: to get neighbours talking to each other again to begin to counter evidence from social researchers that British society is becoming ever more fractured and isolated.

The other event that caught my attention was Npower’s Cricket In The Park. A large part of Sefton Park was fenced off for family entertainment, food and drink and, of course, the ability to watch live cricket on the big screen erected for the event.

A range of household brands including Npower, Buxton Spring Water and Sky Sports sponsored Cricket in the Park. There was no hard sell just free entertainment.

So why are these brands investing millions in sponsoring grass roots local events?

We are all bombarded with thousands of images and adverts every week, so a 30-second advert in the middle of our favourite soap no longer gets our attention.

Big brands understand they need to make a far more emotional and subtle connection to get our attention. Step up experiential marketing.

The term experiential marketing may be new, but the art of creating an experience where the result is an emotional connection to a person, brand, product or idea is not.

For decades activities such as field marketing, special events, product promotions, and PR stunts have engaged consumers and the public emotionally, creating positive associations with a product or brand.

What we are seeing now is a development of this concept, creating events that communicate something of the brand ethos whilst subtly endearing themselves to those who partake in the experience.

Experiential marketing attempts to convert consumers almost without them knowing.

I am not planning on changing my electricity or credit card as a result of this weekend but these brands are investing in developing long-term relationships with their customers and you never know – it may just work.