The Future's Looking Pretty Experiential, Actually

As digital and interactive content constantly evolves, brands are increasingly adapting to new platforms and adjusting experiences to keep up with their consumer’s demands. Experiential marketing creates remarkable experiences for brands to secure greater customer engagement and satisfaction.

International new media and entertainment studio Moment Factory is currently pioneering new experiences using video, lighting, architecture, sound and special effects. Having worked with leading musicians such as Madonna and Nine Inch Nails, and curated installations and events for the likes of Cirque du Soleil, Disney and Sony, it’s safe to say that the team has a strong understanding of the medium. Moment Factory’s partner/creative director Sakchin Bessette lifts the lid on how to create such awe-inspiring and unforgettable experiences.

Experiential marketing has a great deal of buzz around it at present considering it’s increasingly moving from a one-off or nice-to-have activity to a vital and integral part of brand planning. And the reason is clear. Today’s consumers are bombarded with a range of messages through a plethora of different channels – many screen-based – which are becoming increasingly immune to mass-market persuasion techniques. Add to that only watching content on demand, perhaps paying to skip ads and rarely looking at print, and you can easily see how younger consumers especially are taking control and minimizing the impact that advertisers have on their lives.

So it’s no surprise that brands are now looking to engage with consumers in more personal, meaningful and, some might say, creative ways. They need to trigger dialogue with people who have little time or interest in chatting and this is where experiential marketing (EM) is coming into its own.

In its simplest form, EM has been around for centuries – ever since the first person chose to offer samples in the street of whatever they were selling. Today it’s more about being immersed in a fun and memorable experience, underpinned by a compelling story, with added focus on immediacy, engagement, collaboration and trust. Plato said human behaviour flows from three main sources; desire, knowledge and emotion and it’s a return on that emotion - ROE rather than ROI - that's driving Moment Factory in its boundary-busting EM work.

We believe if you tap into and create emotions through memorable experiences, then you have started a powerful conversation and can help to change perceptions and behaviours. Major brands are starting to agree; EM is no longer a pet-project or one-off event. The most forward-thinking businesses are inviting creative studios to the table early on and making unique experiences a core part of their brand strategy.

Impactful experiential marketing today also aims to create an experience that makes people feel connected to each other, often through a story we all instinctually recognise or a shared moment of wonder and awe. It should be about promoting congregation – and discussion - at a time in our history when it’s easy to be isolated. In order to constantly deliver new ‘wow’ moments, agencies and EM specialists need to be regularly refreshing their approaches and finding new ways to marry creativity with the latest technologies. When all of this works well, today’s EM experts create powerful experiences that can help brands tell their stories, not just sell their products or services.

With a company background in creating captivating audience experiences at shows and events for the likes of Madonna and at destinations like Montreal, it’s no surprise that staging is a particular area of expertise for us. We have used these skills in the past few years to deliver mind-blowing, interactive product launches for the likes of Microsoft Kinect and permanent customer experiences for brands such as Royal Caribbean International, like a show below.

Retailers are also increasingly turning to EM to redefine the in-store visit as an extension of the brand experience. Oakley, the sporting apparel and accessory business is a brand that likes to do things differently. We embraced its ‘Disruptive by Design’ positioning to create a permanent installation comprising 27 LCD screens in its Fifth Avenue store in New York.

With a narrow storefront and the need not to impinge on valuable merchandising space, the installation was created for the ceiling and relays exciting footage of Oakley’s endorsing athletes, merged with a customized ‘visual language’ that we developed for the project.

We were also commissioned by Los Angeles World Airport to deliver visual and storytelling content for seven iconic media features in its new terminal at LAX (below). Focusing on the passenger experience, the iconography of LA and the destinations served, four hours of original video content was created, as well as multiple interactive capsules that respond to passenger movements and real-time airport information.

The terminal is now a spectacular welcoming space in which to spend time and de-stress – not just somewhere to hurry through – and the surrounding retailers have experienced an upturn in business.

As techniques and technologies develop, and along with them creative studios who have the expertise to innovate along with the tools, the possibilities for experiential marketing appear endless. Our big hope is that as brands reap the benefits of encouraging congregation and driving positive emotional experiences, that they also harness their power to help make the world a better place.