Love Hurts. So Does Ineffective Experiential Marketing.

The heart of successful Experiential Marketing lies in the longevity of the connection between brand and individual. But how do you measure the value of the time devoted to your relationship with your consumers? It requires going beyond surveys or referral campaigns, it requires ROI (Return on Investment) mechanisms to be built into the very fabric of the experience itself. This is not a one-off gimmick at a concert with boosted exposure on Twitter feeds and Facebook posts. This is a long-term relationship and must be treated as such.

Let’s play a quick role playing game – Brands, you are the men. You need a way to catch the woman’s (individual’s) attention. This is where that “wow” experience is critical. Emerging technologies like virtual reality (i.e. Oculus Rift), gesture-based technologies like the Microsoft Kinect and location-based technology like Apple’s iBeacons, are quickly being used to achieve that initial “wow” connection. As of this year, brand investment in augmented reality (AR) applications alone is expected to reach $1.5 Billion, according to Juniper Research.

Brands… say you’ve utilized one of those emerging technologies and now you’ve “got the girl.” Now what? Now comes the courtship. During this courtship, you still want to maintain that high level of interest that keeps them coming back for more. So what does this mean for brands who invest in that “wow” experience? It means you have to invest in experiences that can be repurposed because you want to play the long-game, not a one-off. For example, having an Oculus Rift at an event to allow individuals to truly immerse themselves in a brand experience creates an incredibly memorable impact. So why not extend the life of that impact and complement that experience with a downloadable 360º interactive video app that engages and informs the individual whenever the brand releases something new? Or why not create an online version, especially since YouTube will soon support 360º video? Don’t drop the ball after the “first date”, continue to engage your customers on an individual basis and they will be begging for you to meet the parents!

But you can’t stop there. Some say it’s impossible for most men to guess what’s going on inside a woman’s head, and the same could be said about a brand’s ability “guess” an individual’s true emotional connection throughout the brand experience. This is why building ROI measurements into the back end of the experience is critical to ensuring the long-term health of the brand-to-individual relationship.

900lbs of Creative goes beyond the metaphorical mood ring and applies custom data-collection to the backend of every experience, gathering data on everything from individual touch points to facial emotional data to length of time spent throughout each part of the experience. With the Perot Museum Run Exhibit, for example, we are able to continuously track how many individuals participate in the run experience every day, month and year. We can also identify which computer generated, animal, or live-action runner each individual chooses to race, allowing us to update the content as often as desired based on user demand and preferences. That data can then be translated into easily understood metrics like this one – “In one year, the total distance run by participants at the Perot Museum Run Exhibit was equivalent to the distance from LA to NYC!” Data like this allows for constant readjustment and individualized understanding of the actions and emotional motivations that drive user behavior. It’s that level of understanding combined with constant high-level engagement that allows brands to convert a customer courtship into a lifetime partnership.