Moving On

It's been short, but i'm off to wordpress so please come and follow me at http://alanriva.wordpress.com.

Technology Pushing the Experience Barriers

Phenomenal thinking by Miguel and the team at Y Dreams. These guys are constantly at the cutting edge of developing and using technology that transforms everyday routines into surprising, exciting and inspiring adventures…

YouTube - Interactive Visitors Center - Ciudad Grupo Santander, Madrid

Can a promotion be ‘experiential’?

If the ultimate champagne drinking experience is a vintage bottle of bubbles drunk from a woman's shoe then Piper-Heidsiek's 'Le Rituel' gift with purchase is a promotional experience par excellence.

Want to connect with your shoppers?

If you are battling with competitors to sway purchase intent in those critical, last few meters of the path to purchase, here is a little inspiration for you. Take some traditional POS, stir in a little interactivity and hey presto...

Experiential Spam

Experiential Spam: Def: A moment of disconnect between a brand and an audience created by a forced or unwanted interaction developed to interrupt, rather than enhance a consumer's day.

Experiential Marketing is a communications philosophy that, put simply, focuses on creating a positive and relevant experience for a brand's audience. It opens up new points of connection by combining the emotive with the sensory to create a strong glue that binds the two entities together.

Subsequently, Experiential Marketing done well can instantly weave a brand into the emotional fabric of our lives, a rich space that can build strong relationships, inspiring actions and driving powerful word of mouth advocacy. The risk of a badly constructed experience is the reverse, create the Experiential equivalent of telemarketing, door to door sales or email spam and you engender consumer ambivalence or worse annoyance and a subsequent bushfire of negative word of mouth for your brand.

Enjoy the following… creative ideas no doubt, but positive experience or spam – you decide?

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/ambient/charmin_toilet_paper_the_helping_hand

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/business/media/30adco.html

The Human Joystick

There is something explosively powerful about getting people to collaborate in their masses for a common goal. Mexican waves bring opposing supporters together, mobile phones at a concert signal a unified mass of love for an artist and club anthems sung at a stadium (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7xvegPH_Lw) unite social divides under a single banner. Now imagine if your brand was that unifying force and you had the entire audience at an event working in harmony for a common goal and engaged in your brand like never before.

Orange, a brand that has made a habit of turning imagination into reality through belief and bravery has opened the frontier to interactive audience experiences. I'll say no more, just watch and enjoy this video and remember this experience centric technology next time you are looking to engage your audience en masse.

Experience – The Killer Application

What is it about experiences that are so powerful for brands and business and why should businesses be experiential?

As with all things good in life, it comes down to one simple truth...

Before you read further, take a moment. Think back and pick out the memories that make your life's story. My guess is that there is one common thread in your memories – they are all experiences. Why? Simple again, we are all experiential beings.

In life, it is through experiences that we learn, it is through experiences that we create the strongest bonds between our friends, peers and loved ones and it is through experiences that we form almost all of our memories through which we define ourselves and our lives.

So to follow this undeniably truth to the 'what's in it for me ending' - if all of your customers are experiential and you truly understand the experiential heart beat of your product, service or charity you will effortlessly retain them, increase the value they represent, acquire their friends and also move them swiftly though the advocacy funnel.