Experiential Marketing 2.0

Welcome to the age of mobility! No longer are audiences chained to their desks to send emails or forced to lug around cumbersome notebooks to update their Twitter or Facebook status. Old news? You betcha! But few brands are taking advantage of the recent ability to engage their audiences at any destination through their mobile devices.

As a marketer, I’ve often joked about implanting RFID chips into people or at the very least, tattooing a barcode on their forehead so we can track their activities and behaviors. Now we have something even better ~ all kidding aside. Most everyone has a cellular phone, smart phone or mobile device of some kind. Many are outfitted with a GPS. People are willingly sharing information with the world about who they are, what they are interested in, where they are going and what they are doing. Wake up marketers! This is what we have hoped and dreamed about for decades!

There are six location-based applications / services I’ve had my eye on recently: Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl and Yelp. In this post I’ll briefly describe each and offer a few ideas on how to take advantage of these tools to complement experiences, drive engagement, foster community and build brand relationships with audiences.

1. Brightkite

What is it? Brightkite helps people discover where their friends are and introduces users to new people, places and events in their neighborhood. It also allows users to simplify their social life by posting updates to several social networks.

What’s so cool about it? Brightkite works like many other social networks with friends, fans, “like” function, filters and search. Users can also customize locations. The introduction of other people, places and events provides and opportunity to create recommendations based on user behaviors and preferences – a potential gold mine for marketers.

Where to get it? Brightkite.com

2. Foursquare

What is it? Foursquare is an application that works on any mobile device. It allows users to “check in” at different locations, share their experiences, earn points & unlock badges, and become the “Mayor” to unlock freebies at different locations.

What’s so cool about it? The incentive-based ranking system and organic tie to restaurants, bars, retailers and other points of interest creates a compelling promotional model that can drive real business.

Where to get it? Foursquare.com

3. Gowalla

What is it? The Gowalla application lets users share their location with others on the Gowalla network, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Users can earn stamps for their virtual “passport”. New locations can be easily discovered by users and added to the Gowalla network of destinations. Gowalla is only available for the iphone and android-enabled devices.

What’s so cool about it? The integration with other social networks is huge. This can begin to help marketers create psychographic and technographic profiles of their audiences across platforms. The passport incentive idea can also help drive business and monetize audience activities.

Where to get it? Gowalla.com

4. Loopt

What is it? Loopt shows users where their friends are located via interactive maps on their mobile phones. It also helps tie people to locations and events. Users can also share geo-tagged photos and comments with people in their network both within Loopt and other social networks. Although Loopt works with many mobile devices, some are not included.

What’s so cool about it? Loopt is really great for finding the physical locations of other people in your network to organize ad-hoc meetings, or for brands to reach out to users in their area for localized promotions.

Where to get it? Loopt.com

5. Whrrl

What is it? Whrrl allows users to check in to different locations, share photos and comments of those places with others, unlock secret societies of users based on your behaviors and create and analyze your “footstream” or digital record of where you’ve been.

What’s so cool about it? Great tool for sharing your experiences with others in your network. For marketers a great tool for creating loyalty and advocacy programs for select “societies” and for spreading promotions beyond the scope of traditional marketing efforts.

Where to get it? Whrrl.com

6. Yelp

What is it? You may know Yelp for their restaurant, retail and other services reviews.

What’s so cool about it? Yelp already has a built in audience and a robust database of places to go and things to do. Connecting people isn’t too far off. Good reviews will drive business both online and on the street.

Where to get it? Yelp.com

Here are some ideas to help marketers to capitalize on these opportunities.

Participate: Subscribe to these services and make sure your business information is up to date on service profiles.

Promote: Create special promotions for subscribers to these services. Freebies, coupons, specials, referrals and loyalty / advocacy programs.

Pull: Create special environments and host formal events and ad-hoc meetups for audiences who belong to these location-based networks. Become THE destination locally.

Partner: Create opportunities for cross-brand promotions within your company and throughout your business partners. This is a great tool for localized micro-affinity marketing. Think dinner and a movie, drinks and museums, office supplies and printing services, makeover, haircut and shopping spree. You get the idea.

Piggyback: For event and experiential marketers, partner with relevant local establishments to extend the event experience. Scavenger hunts, visits to retailers who sell products you showcase at the event, client site case study visits, hospitality events, local office visits can enhance your experience and provide proof-point connections to the real world.

We live in interesting and exciting times. As you consider the social media strategy or your business, ensure location-based services are a part of the plan. Never before have marketers had such an amazing opportunity to connect with their audiences at the moment of truth.

Have other ideas? Please share!

Some are old but under-utilized. Others are available now, but not necessarily used in the event space. Still others coming in the not-to-distant future and have some amazing potential for creating experiences that drive engagement with our audiences.

Marketers are increasingly challenged by breaking through the clutter to create brand experiences which solicit appropriate emotional and rational responses from our audiences in order to accomplish our business objectives. Tried and true techniques for engaging our audiences, including interaction and storytelling to drive relationships are still relevant. Engagement and authenticity continue to be key components of a well-engineered brand communications strategy.

Human communication is evolving. What attracts us and motivates us is constantly changing. The way we interact with each other, our communities and the companies we do business with is increasingly complex. Technology is everywhere and can become an insurmountable distraction or a useful tool to help us in driving indelible experiences which last well beyond a single moment in time and spark long-term relationships.

Here are six game-changing technologies that will help experiences and events make more of an impact on audiences and brands alike.

1. MIT’s Sixth Sense Augmented Reality:

Augmented reality combines visual, three dimensional environments with virtual information creating a hybrid view of the real world and relevant data. Several companies are running to create augmented reality applications for smartphones that will add information to maps, landmarks, people and the like. The most compelling vision of augmented reality however is not from a mobile device, but a wearable computer from MIT. Imagine interpreting attendee, product, brand, speaker, subject matter information instantaneously through an personal projection onto any surface. Other versions could involve audio cues delivered through headphones, or heads-up displays built into eyeglasses.  Very cool stuff. Pretty soon, we won’t need to remember anything. First the calculator took away our ability to do simple math, then along came the GPS so we can’t find our way out of the driveway, and now this…

2. Samsung PROM Audience Measurement System:

This system uses a camera and facial recognition software to determine the gender, ethnicity and emotional reaction of audiences to advertisements shown on an interactive screen. Using this data, the system can serve up different advertisements based on the audience standing in front of the monitor. Samsung is just scratching the surface here. Imagine using this technology for product demonstrations at a tradeshow, showcasing the most relevant products, features or benefits based on audience demographics or physical reactions. Imagine an entire experience being customized to a single member of your audience based on the same technology. What about speaking sessions? Or interactive virtual events where participants have their webcams on, giving the virtual event producer the opportunity to customize content based on the same information to each screen. Amazing stuff.

3. Kaon Interactive V-OSK:

As an experiential or event marketer, if you haven’t heard of Kaon Interactive or their V-OSK solutions you may be missing out on some pretty amazing technology. Kaon creates high definition, three-dimensional product models and system demonstrations to help sales and marketing teams illustrate product features and benefits. The V-OSK solution is basically an interactive touch screen that allows users to interact with a virtual product, process or solution. Demonstrations can be self-guided or hosted by a staffer. Key features and benefits can be programmed into each layer of the high-definition, three-dimensional image which can be taken apart or otherwise manipulated to obtain just the right view.  This is ideal for use in corporate lobbies, museums, executive briefing centers and tradeshows. I once heard someone define drayage as the best way to move freight the shortest possible distance, at the slowest possible pace for the highest possible cost. A Kaon solution virtually eliminates the need to ship or store products both large and small to events. A game-changer for companies who sell anything from consumer appliances to servers to manufacturing equipment, food processing machinery, medical equipment, or anything else that drives up the cost of floorspace, shipping and drayage. I can see this solution saving some companies millions. Their V-OSK presenter is a great tool for in-depth, interactive presentations for both simple and complex products alike. This can be used for speaking opportunities. Their solution is transferable to the web and e-literature, so once the models are built the ROI on multi-channel distribution is huge. Finally, everything a user does while using a V-OSK is tracked and measurable, helping you to design and develop the most effective demonstrations.

4. Siftables:

What?! Toy blocks for events?! Yep. These are interactive blocks or cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display and wireless communication that can be programmed with calculators, dictionaries, music, etc. Kid’s play, right? Well, partially. I can see Siftables being programmed with more complex data. For example, molecular, atomic, genetic, physics, chemistry, pharmaceutical, biological, ecological, geological, astronomical, electronic, or business-process data. Now we have something very interesting for business and events as a result. Imagine using these interactive blocks as a demonstration or learning tool to tell a story to attendees about what happens when different elements of a (gene, pharmacutical drug, business process, etc.) are moved around or reordered. Add a projector and you can address a mass audience in a very compelling and entertaining fashion. Attendees could each carry around their own siftables and engage in collaborative ideation or problem solving. The possibilities are endless. I am watching these guys closely.

5. AllianceTech RFID Solutions:

Sure, we’ve all heard of using RFID to track whether or not attendees are sitting in our breakout sessions, but the power of RFID is so much more than that. AllianceTech’s ‘Intelligent’ series of products allows brands to understand attendance, manage leads, create surveys, understand booth and demonstration visits and durations, drive attendee networking and even tie into signage that can be customized for each attendee. What’s more, is I’ve heard AllianceTech is doing some very interesting things tying onsite behavior to pre and post event activities, including social media monitoring for some clients to give a true 360 view of audience behavior. Now that’s powerful. Real-time data which can be used to customize experiences on the fly, and longer-term analytics to create predictive models to drive real, consistent brand performance. I’m looking forward to when RFID is fully integrated into complete event experiences, well beyond intelligent signage. Imagine customized one-to-one signage, demonstrations, sound, video, lighting, temperature, scent, carpet pile, you name it.

6. Hypersonic Sound:

Ambient noise is a huge problem at events. Booth theater, speakers, product demonstrations, magicians, gameshows, even the attendees themselves add to the noise pollution and detract from the experience for everyone in the audience. Imagine sound being delivered exactly to the ears of the specific attendee you were targeting. The person to their left or right would not hear the demonstration, only them. Pretty amazing stuff. I’m waiting for active noise cancellation technology to be more effective and efficient in three-dimensional spaces (beyond the more traditional noise-cancelling headphone). It will be very cool when we can step off the tradeshow aisle carpet into a booth and experience total silence.

These are just six of some of the most interesting technologies with event applications I’ve come across. Of course, there’s virtual reality, photo or video activation, mobile applications and many others as well.

Please share your favorites!

There once was a time when experience simply referred to one’s reaction to a physical environment at a specific time and place. In the late 80’s and early 90’s we started hearing about user experience (UX) as it related to a person’s interaction with software on a computer or website. Now as we think about virtual worlds, virtual events, hybrid events, online gaming, social media, digital interaction and mobile devices, experiences have become quite complex.

During virtually every conversation we are attempting to have with our audiences, we are competing with their internal monologue, simultaneous social media conversations, emails, text messages, and other environmental factors.

We are no longer singularly focused. People generally do not live in the moment. Monologues and dialogues have become polylogues and we now live in a world where chaos, distraction and multi-tasking is the norm.

Audiences are harder to reach. People are more difficult to persuade. Competitive advantage is harder to achieve. It is exceedingly difficult to cut through the clutter and get your message out.

As experiential marketers, we are faced with an interesting challenge. Where we were once entirely focused on creating experiences which activated the emotional and rational levers of our audiences from a face-to-face perspective, we now have to account for the distractions of laptops, netbooks, and mobile devices. Additionally, social media has created a powerful back-channel which competes heavily with the experiences we work so diligently to engineer. Instead of contributing the the noise, if we take a targeted approach to engaging our audiences across their communications channels, we will be able to take what many see as an impediment to our success and turn it into an opportunity. Here are some thoughts on how.

Create Indelible Experiences. If you want to keep attendees engaged, the most important thing you can do is create experiences which naturally capture and hold their attention. Effective experiences tell a story, include attendee interaction, are authentic, on brand and immersive. These experiences engage the senses and activate both emotional and rational triggers of your audience. For more information check out Are You Experienced?.

Drive And Engage In The Conversation. Marketers too often take a broadcast approach to their messaging. We create environments, graphics, pictures, signs, videos, etc. to propagate our message. “Here are the features and benefits of our product,” Here is why you want to do business with our company” and the like. Instead of approaching audiences with answers, try using questions to tell your story: “What is your biggest challenge?” “What do you think about…?”, etc.  Spending some time in your audience’s shoes and understanding their needs will help build relationships based on trust. At an event it means more than setting up a booth. It requires speaking sessions, networking activities, etc. Online it means more than setting up a Facebook page or Tweeting about your products. It requires listening and engaging with audiences. Becoming an integral part of the conversation will ensure long-term brand success.

Create Social Destinations. Use Blogs, FaceBook pages, Twitter feeds, YouTube channels, Flickr, branded social networks, etc. If you build them, they might come. Think outside of the event in terms of audience, content and relationships. Building the channels and the content is just the first step. It’s critical you stay engaged and keep content fresh. These platforms are excellent for participating in the conversation. Make sure you do. Listening, reacting, commenting, etc. is the purpose of social media. Spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% of your time engaging the community. Social media destinations and audience engagement should be executed before, during and after the event.

Facilitate The Backchannel. Concerned about the lack of control you might have over brand perception in the social space? Participate! Research where your audiences are most likely to engage in social media and help facilitate and influence the conversation. Create official #hashtags. Use the social destinations suggested above. Create content that encourages audience participation. Ask provocative questions that rally your communities around an idea. Consider yourself the grand facilitator of all things directly or indirectly related to your brand both face-to-face and online. Use your physical presence to drive conversation into the backchannel – without distracting audiences from the live event. This is an important point. You’ve spend a great deal of time, money and effort to build a face-to-face audience. Engage and captivate your audience. Any social media activities should be additive and complement your efforts by addressing audiences beyond the attendee, not pull your attendees out of the face-to-face discussion, but be omnipresent.

Create A Mobile Playground. The most persuasive distraction brands compete with during a face-to-face event is the mobile device. Attendees are constantly checking email, texting, using mobile applications, social media and otherwise. Again, being omnipresent is an opportunity to engage attendees wherever their attention may be focused. Capture attendee mobile contact information at registration. Send emails and texts to attendees during the event to keep them engaged. Consider creating branded mobile applications that tie into the subject matter or theme of the event that engage attendees. Mobile games an sweepstakes are another approach. Use third-party mobile social media applications like Foursquare, Gowalla or Yelp to build interesting and engaging campaigns or mashups to keep audiences interested and immersed in your brand’s message.

Immerse Audiences In Virtual Experiences. In my earlier post Six Things to Consider on the Way to the New World, I talked about what a virtual event is, and what it is not. Virtual events are powerful tactics indeed. Consider adopting hybrid models to complement your physical events. Hybrid events bolster attendance, increase access to content, extend the life of a physical event, leverage and reuse assets, increase reach, drive buzz, enhance attendee value and improve ROI. Again, the idea is to be omnipresent within the community and to own the conversation wherever possible.

Always Look To The Future. Use RFID to track attendees areas of interest and behaviors or to personalize experiences. Consider using holography or augmented reality to create experiences that truly immerse and engage attendees in your experiences. Be forward leaning in your approach to investigating and adopting new technologies in your program. a good resource for ideas here is TED. Check it out!

These are just a few innovative ideas to motivate and activate your audiences. The key is to create physical and virtual environments and activities which attract, capture, engage and build lasting relationships with your audiences. Be on brand, be omnipresent and most importantly, be valuable.

Have other thoughts? Please share!