Live brand experience: Throwing a birthday party helps to build brand loyalty

Making a brand more personal and giving it human characteristics helps customers to relate to it and feel an affinity with the product.

Throwing a company birthday party is a great live brand experience which allows customers to feel part of the family.

Birthdays help customers to think about tradition and history and where the brand has come from, often sentimentalising the brand's story.

Companies have been cashing in on birthday celebrations for years and using them as a way to reward customers, attract attention and boost brand loyalty.

A birthday is a human construct and can point to one of two things for a brand – either they have hundreds of years of experience in the market and are therefore trusted, or they are one or two years old and highlight the new and innovative approach they have to things.

This month has seen the 250th birthday of a British institution, as Madame Taussaud had some of its celebrity wax figures gathered around a birthday cake to mark the occasion.

A great chance for publicity and a good photo opportunity, as a wax model of the founder herself rubbed shoulders with Russell Brand, the Queen and the Beckhams.

Supperclub in London has also celebrated its birthday recently, but at the other end of the spectrum.

The emphasis for this brand has always been innovation and spectacular so it is no coincidence that it chose to celebrate the London arm of the brand's second birthday.

As a concept, Supperclub is 20 years old, but acrobats, dancers and world renowned DJs came out for a brand experience no one who attended is likely to forget anytime soon.

Another brand, which is to be two years old is the Angry Birds game and Barnes & Noble will be organising scavenger hunts in 700 of its shops in order to celebrate the occasion.

Birthday parties are an evocative and clever marketing tool, which can help to increase brand loyalty and emphasise the ethos of the company, so whatever the age, make sure you mark the occasion.