By Event Flow London
It’s a fair question. Social media can put a brand in front of millions of people by lunchtime. Paid advertising can follow someone from one website to the next. Online shopping means a customer never has to speak to anyone at all. And yet established brands in energy, home security, telecoms, financial comparison, food and pet care still invest in something far older: a person, in the street, starting a conversation. They aren’t doing it out of nostalgia. They’re doing it because digital is very good at one job and much weaker at another.
Being seen versus being trusted
Getting noticed has never been cheaper. Getting believed has never been harder. Most of us scroll past dozens of adverts a day and forget nearly all of them, because an advert can only talk at us. It can’t hear a question, pick up on doubt or adjust when something doesn’t land.
A conversation can. That’s the whole reason we deliver every campaign face to face, through people who understand both the brand and the audience they’re speaking to. The best customer relationships still start with a real conversation, and no format has changed that yet.
Trust is decided quickly
In our recent article The Two-Second Conversation, we looked at research suggesting it takes a stranger about a tenth of a second to judge whether someone seems trustworthy. That’s quicker than any headline can be read.
The same piece points to a habit that undermines most conversations: preparing your next line instead of listening to the one you’ve just heard. Good in-person work runs the other way. The customer leads, and the representative listens before answering.
People remember how they were treated
Earlier this month we wrote about Pret A Manger letting staff give away free drinks in 2015, and about Timpson’s “upside-down management”, which trusts employees to put customer care ahead of rigid rules. Both say the same thing about trust: customer interactions are remembered more than policies.
That idea sits at the centre of face-to-face marketing. A customer won’t remember the small print, but they will remember whether the person in front of them was clear, honest and respectful.
For a few minutes, the representative is the brand
This is also why face-to-face isn’t easy, and why it shouldn’t be left to chance. When someone stops to talk, the representative isn’t just passing on a message. They’re the brand’s reputation in real time.
So training matters. Each representative is taught to carry the brand consistently, so that a first impression helps its reputation rather than putting it at risk.
A campaign that learns as it goes
There’s another advantage of in-person work that’s easy to miss: every conversation is also feedback.
Our campaigns start by understanding the brand, its objectives and the reality of its customers, with no assumptions and no shortcuts. Strategies are then built around real human behaviour rather than generic playbooks, and delivered face to face across London. After that, what people actually say is fed back into the next round, so each conversation shapes the ones that follow.
An online campaign can tell you how many people scrolled past. A person can often tell you why.
So why do they still invest?
Because small moments add up to lasting impressions. Digital channels are excellent at getting a brand seen, but trust, loyalty and long-term growth are still built between people. The brands that understand this aren’t choosing between online and in person. They’re using each for what it does best.
Interested in being part of those conversations? Explore our Brand Representation and Fast-Track Business Development programmes on our Careers page.