Amplifying experience with technology

29th April 2019

Written by Rhea Simpson, Marketing Executive

Increasingly brands are putting consumer experience at the heart of their campaigns and the popularity of experience-centric activations makes it a challenge to stand out from the rest. Leveraging technology to amplify the physical experience or provide shareable takeaways can take an ordinary campaign to the next level.

Patrón Tequila recently merged live action and computer graphics to create a 360-video following the production journey from agave field to a glamorous party. The piece took 6 months to produce and is now used as a VR experience to tell the brand story at all of their events. Taking the experience way beyond product samples into the heritage of the brand.

VR is also being used to highlight more charitable causes – Earth Day 2019 is introducing the technology to raise awareness of important environmental issues.
Earthx 2019 Expo is the world’s largest Earth Day celebration and this year it will have over 40 immersive VR and AR experiences which have been created to educate, raise awareness and drive change regarding important environmental issues.

Augmented reality (AR) shares a similar concept to VR in that it utilities digital capabilities to bring an experience to life. AR instead mixes digital reality with a real environment to create a unique user experience.

Coachella festival 2019 introduced a specific stage for space-themed AR content. By using the Coachella Camera featured in the Coachella app, festival-goers could access an interactive experience that responded to the live performances in real-time. The camera showed a range of augmented visuals such as astronauts, planets and many more various space references.

Earlier this year, Lego launched its very own pop-up store to promote its limited-edition clothing line. The ‘store’ contained only a Snapchat code on a plinth which could be scanned by visitors to reveal an augmented-reality boutique on their smartphone screen. The ‘shop’ featured a DJ booth, an arcade machine and customers could buy physical items from the range through an integrated “shop now” service. Using AR images to encourage physical purchases is something that has never been done before but holds the potential to give us a key insight into the future of retail.

The rise of incorporating high-end immersive technology into experiential marketing is something that is predicted to only increase over the upcoming years. Allowing consumers to shift from passive viewers to fully immersed in the events will only increase engagement and retention of brand messages.