Content creation challenges in experiential marketing
31.10.2018
With the rapid developments in technology and shifting social trends, content developed for consumers needs to be keeping up with these changes and patterns. Brands are utilising experiential marketing more and more, leaning towards the live activations that engage their fans and customers. Consumers do not want to feel isolated anymore, material products and possessions do not define your cultural status like before, it is now our shared experiences and sense of being a ‘collective’. With this in mind brands are facing challenges of how they can create content to unite communities and ‘tribes’ around their product or service.
This opens up a relatively new branch of content that creates a 2-way conversation between brands and consumers, immersive experiences where you as the customer get to choose your own direction and tailor the content you intake to your interests and passions.
Studies show that 80% of social media content reflects a live event, something shared by the masses that is interesting to tune into even when you aren’t there present in the moment. When a brand is attached to this experience this creates marketing and exposure more effective than most traditional advertising. But how do we constantly keep these experiences new, innovative and engaging? Technology is only as good as the content you create for it, so although you may harness the latest VR technology in your latest campaign the content created alongside it has to be smart, revolutionary and outstanding. Without this creative thinking you are not pushing the potential of technology forward.
Take Millennials as an example, often perceived as having a breadth of information at their fingertips from birth, therefore having short attention spans. Not true. Millennials as well as other recent generations are simply more ruthless with the information and entertainment they choose to receive and respond to. This challenges content creators to constantly be developing, changing and innovating their work without fear of scrutiny from the most tuned-in, brand aware audiences in the history of popular culture.
Trust in brands has plummeted whilst trust in influencers has soared meaning brands want to attach a more human representative to their brand. Using a brand ambassador or social influencer allows you to target a specific audience, as well as bringing in a broader demographic that may not have initially been of interest to your brand values. Influencers act as a platform to engage with audiences on a more personal level, creating content more meaningful to those watching. Tie this in with the latest technology and streaming social platforms and you are really targeting your market. This could even take the form of a digital visual delegate to guide you through a more bespoke experience on VR (check out Facebook Faces) and the potential this has to connect brands to their audience.
With all of this in mind we need to reinvent not only how we drive content and what it is composed of but also how it is absorbed. Brands are steering away from screens to focus on triggering every sensory receptor people have. Smells, sounds and touch all create just as much lasting memory than to what we see. Create something that pulls away from encouraging viewers to just sit back and watch but immerse them and encourage them to explore, share and interact. Don’t just stamp a brand logo on this experience, seamlessly weave it in to your USP’s as well as company beliefs and values. This separates good content from the award-winning and ground-breaking.
By Will Hood, Head of Studio, The Drop
Go Back