Music and dancing are essential to the way many of us relate with one another: you might feel a connection with others sharing the same taste in music, or might feel a closer bond with others when participating in a song and dance. And with technology permeating all aspects of culture and fundamentally changing the way we socialize, what might a tech-infused musical performance of tomorrow look like?

To answer this question, we take a close look at two different musical experiences—a marquee concert event and an AR experience that may be enjoyed anywhere—that each offer value not just for fans, but also artists and brands hoping to make a mark on culture through tech-driven creative experiences. The secret to both their successes is how they uniquely inspire connection between fans and how they engage with the experience at hand, offering a handful of best practices when leveraging emerging tech.

Translating Familiar Activations into Forward-Thinking Tech

MediaMonks recently sought to modernize the concert-going experience at Super Saturday Night—a major night of musical programming on the eve of the Super Bowl—which featured Lady Gaga this year.  “It followed a specific ask from AT&T: how do we modernize the traditional concert-going experience and make this truly tech-forward?” says Shamlin. The team took inspiration by reinventing the types of activations you would typically find at concerts and events, giving them a Lady Gaga facelift and bringing them into a more future-forward form.

Take the Monster Wall for example. This play on the “step and repeat” media wall, commonly found at so many award shows and other big-name events, encourages attendees to strut, stop and snap a photo. The wall animates unique, neon-lit “little monsters” (referencing Lady Gaga’s name for her fans) that mimic attendees’ movements with no latency, demonstrating the strength of AT&T’s 5G network.

This type of smart, relevant demonstration of product offering is critical to apply to integrated marketing delivery across the board, whether through live experiential events or with a digital banner ad. “Empowered customers and prospects hiding from advertising and marketing put pressure on CMOs to create stickier media executions and experiences,” writes Forrester Principal Analyst Jay Pattisall in The Forrester Wave™: Full-Service Media Agencies, Q1 2019 report. “This new challenge means media campaigns and the agency partners that deliver them must forgo conventional reach and frequency in favor of more personalized, culturally relevant and technology-savvy execution.”

A similar idea takes effect with our upgrade of the signature wall—essentially, a blank wall or canvas that anyone can sign, share a message or doodle on. But what if the signature wall didn’t have to be limited to a flat surface, and could extend into the space all around us?  “Drawing on Kindness” is an AR experience that answers this question by letting attendees use phones as if they were brushes capable of painting the three-dimensional space around them, inviting them to really leave a mark on the environment.

Differentiating Through Desire for Connection

The above activations play on the concert’s theme of bringing people together through kindness, a theme shared by the artist herself. All digitally infused performances and events must likewise be intentional with how they use technology—a lack of purpose runs the risk of reducing artistry into novelty.

People attend concerts for a sense of connection with the artist, sharing the same space with them and other fans. When Childish Gambino sought to bring a performance anywhere—even your living room—with augmented reality, this desire to connect was key in our development of the Pharos AR app, made in collaboration between MediaMonks, Google, Unity and Wolf + Rothstein. The app initially soft launched at Coachella in 2019.

In addition to treating users to an intimate performance of an exclusive track, the app serves as a direct channel between the artist and his fans, offering an exciting way to release new songs and virtual performances right into fans’ homes. “It serves as another outlet for Childish Gambino’s creativity, letting him update his fans with future song releases over the cloud,” said MediaMonks Sr. Producer Thomas Prevot, who worked on the project.

Activations Still Thrive on Simplicity

Despite the bells and whistles of cool, futuristic activations detailed above, there’s still a lot of value for simplicity. Ask Shamlin about one of the most popular attractions at Super Saturday Night, and he’ll introduce you to the Monster Paw, a giant claw-shaped sculpture based on Lady Gaga’s iconic hand pose. Attendees could stand in front of the claw to capture a dynamic, 180-degree gif of themselves in front of it.

“It’s the least tech-forward attraction we placed there, but it’s turned out really cool given the materials, dramatic lighting and fog,” says Shamlin, who notes that its simplicity and obvious value as a social takeway have elevated the Monster Paw to being a hero moment for fans at the show. It serves as a good example of how the design of any good experience must begin with offering a clear value. “How do you capture attention and get people to pause?” asks Shamlin. “The balance of technology often has a learning curve. You have to teach how, why and when to make an interaction.”

Shamlin’s point hearkens back to the truth that any use of emerging tech must offer a key, easy-to-grasp value to users in order to be received successfully. With intentional design, strategic onboarding and cultural relevance working in concert with one another, experiential activations in many forms can modernize the typical music-going experience to dramatic effect.

The rate of hyperadoption in digital retail has accelerated in recent months: consumers are buying online more than ever before, and retailers selling non-essentials online saw a 65% uptick in online revenue from March 14 to April 17, according to Forbes. As consumers adapt to the necessity and convenience of discovering, researching and purchasing online, retailers must also harness this moment to bridge the online and offline shopping experiences.

Econsultancy reports that “47% percent of respondents from large enterprises say that in the past several weeks, they have observed product or service innovations at their organizations as a result of the outbreak, while 49% have observed innovation in marketing messaging or branding that they might use post-outbreak.” One such innovation that marketers are exploring is augmented reality (AR), specifically for industries in which meeting in-person was previously thought to be critical in making a purchasing decision—take luxury retailers, commercial and residential real estate, car buying and more.

AR Offers an Intuitive Digital Shopping Experience

Many consumers are already familiar with AR technology thanks to the ubiquity of AR filters in camera apps like Instagram or Facebook Camera. In fact, Facebook also offers AR-based advertisements within the newsfeed, allowing customers to “try out” products virtually—for example, testing lipstick shades using the front-facing camera.

AR technology links the convenience of shopping from home with the ability to inspect, explore and assess products on a store shelf. This offers a comfortable middle ground for consumers who want to bring the retail experience closer to home, either out of personal preference or due to a need for contactless shopping solutions.

A new normal requires new ways to engage.

Retailers are also primed to become the next big media platforms for brands to tell their stories, according to insights from the Forrester report, “Retailers: You’re The Next Media Moguls.” “Shopping is fragmented and the shopping journey isn’t linear, but consumers are nonetheless likely to discover and research high- and low-consideration products in retail stores and on retail websites,” writes Forrester VP, Principal Analyst Sucharita Kodali. “As sources of information, retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart know they are well positioned to tell brand stories to these shoppers on their and other websites.”

Big-box retailers and leading ecommerce platforms can transform the shopping experience and support the businesses they represent by offering such highly personalized digital experiences. By baking AR into its app, for example, Amazon enables brands to engage with customers while they’re already in the mindset to shop. But perhaps more important to the role that retail must play for consumers moving forward, these experiences build a personalized connection and emotional resonance.

In his talk “Extending Beyond the Horizon,” delivered to the In-House Agency Forum, MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar discussed the impact that engaging with an object—physically or digitally—has on consumers. “Interacting with product in physical space makes you feel like you own it. Building that into the digital experience delivers on that user expectation for personalization that’s often missing.”

Streamline the In-Store or Showroom Experience

While the immediate benefits of AR are clear to at-home shoppers, the technology can enhance and streamline the brick-and-mortar retail experience as well. Examples include wayfinding toward specific products via a mobile camera or offering AR directories that may make it easier to find specific stores and departments. AR product demonstrations like those mentioned above serve a purpose in-store, too, offering a high-tech alternative to display products or expert-led demos, enabling an overall contactless shopping experience.

In this respect, retailers should approach AR with a sense of purpose, ensuring the space embraces a “camera-ready” approach. “Is your packaging ready for cameras, is your retail space ready for cameras?” asks ter Haar. “In building an overall AR infrastructure, consider: What do I want people to unlock when they scan something?”

Supporting these technologies also establishes a long-term strategy for real estate businesses to activate spaces and build a sense of placemaking for their retail tenants. Similarly, 3D content offers an engaging way for these businesses to entice new tenants: for example, offering an AR overlay that virtually furnishes the space, adds data visualizations or lets users see the effect that time of day has on lighting. In response to social distancing, for example, venues are building digital twins that let online users truly inhabit spaces digitally. Such features would also prove useful to both retail and residential real estate.

Focus on Simplicity and Efficiency in Building AR Experiences

For brands that are experimenting with AR for the first time—either as one-off campaigns or as a sustained feature in an ecommerce platform—it’s important to keep things simple. The most complex and feature-rich AR experiences require users to download and install a brand app, which many users may be unwilling to do. “One aspect that’s very critical is how seamlessly you can enter an AR experience,” says Marie-Céline Merret Wirström, Executive Producer at MediaMonks. “Downloading an app is a huge barrier of entry.” Instead, retailers may consider web-based AR experiences that plug in directly with an existing ecommerce platform with just a simple tap.

Social AR experiences, like those you can find on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, offer a simple way for brands and retailers to experiment with AR. “AR is really powerful in the funnel,” says ter Haar. “Lenses are often thought of just as something that is entertaining but a throwaway experience, buy you can build really impactful functionalities by connecting AR with platforms like Facebook Messenger.”

Build snackable AR experiences that inspire.

Web-based AR is another simple platform to get started on, with an added benefit: users can jump seamlessly into the experience through their web browser. It’s also a very easy platform for brands to develop for. “If you are, say, a luxury brand and have a product that people will want to examine for size and detail, you should be using WebAR,” says ter Haar. “It’s very easy to implement because you just need the 3D format, the model of the product.”

Merret Wirström notes that even the most simplistic AR experiences can be effective for driving digital engagement. “Being able to see a product in 3D in high resolution is all you need, and from there you can expand to include specific features or variations in product,” she says. “That’s just a bare minimum approach, but it’s already so much more effective than looking at a flat image or reading product specifications.”

The Purina One: 28 Day Challenge serves as a good example of how a simple web-based AR experience can inform users while also building an emotional connection. Once activated, users simulate feeding a pet dog or cat that appears within the space they’re in. As the pet eats the Purina blend, the web app highlights signs to look for (and when) to determine improvements in health.

As a means to become more equipped to offer AR experiences, ter Haar suggests that brands elevate the role of 3D content in the marketing mix. “Try to make the AR or 3D element part of your production workflow,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges we run into with AR is that brands don’t have the assets available.”

Volvo’s Polestar 1 Experience, developed for the Geneva Motor Show in 2018, offers a high-end product demonstration by overlaying the Volvo Polestar with AR assets that showcase internal features. While this showroom experience is much more complex than what a retailer might offer at home, it provides an example of how AR can uniquely demystify product attributes through intuitive, customer-led exploration using CAD assets.

Augmented reality remains an efficient and effective way for retailers and real estate businesses to, well, augment the digital experience by building personalized impact. By integrating AR features natively into an ecommerce platform or even in a store, businesses can bridge the gap between online and offline shopping, providing a middle ground that accommodates the shifting needs of consumers.

The 50th meeting of the World Economic Forum took place in Davos, Switzerland this week, where leaders across industries met to discuss the pressing matters of our time and engage with big ideas that are driving agendas across every sector.

At the conference, S⁴Capital Executive Chairman Sir Martin discussed the growth of markets around the world where he finds great potential. “I met with both the president and prime minister of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelensky and Oleksiy Honcharuk], which was really interesting because they’re trying to build a Singapore on steroids and offer incentives for people,” he said. “They have their youngest prime minister, who’s very keen to reform and invest.”

He also touched upon developments around the world, including India, where MediaMonks recently merged with content house WhiteBalance. “We’re very bullish on Asia, in China and India despite the trade wars and tariffs. It’s amazing what some Chinese companies have done despite the trade wars.”

Elsewhere at this year’s conference, the theme focused on stakeholder capitalism, or the idea that a business must focus its efforts on the needs of not only shareholders or employees, but every stakeholder—including its customers, the communities it impacts and society as a whole. It’s a theme that demands change and asks that brands put plans into action for tangible effect. 

In line with this need, MediaMonks aided two businesses whose technologies power initiatives around the world —IBM and Microsoft—by designing and building experiential activations that bring the impacts of their services to life. Both installations demonstrate the role of creative content in making sense of tough-to-grasp concepts, and how to effectively utilize a space to build lasting connections.

Build Value with Creative Content

IBM has called for a new business model built for the 21st century: the cognitive enterprise. While many brands may still feel a need to catch up to their peers in digital transformation, the cognitive enterprise is built around the idea that in today’s world, everyone is digital—and companies must evolve and reinvent themselves to remain competitive.

But what actually is a cognitive enterprise, how does one actually work, and what tools are available to help it function? These are the questions MediaMonks aimed to answer in a short, friendly and digestible way, translating IBM’s report on the model into an engaging and interactive exhibition. 

At the IBM space, our installation invited attendees to explore each part of the cognitive enterprise across different industries: industrial, government, consumer and banking. Once attendees walk into the space, they see a series of LED walls and smart tables; placing a token on the table activates a demonstration featuring beautifully rendered, interactive animations that bring the cognitive enterprise to life through real-world context and application. After attendees get an overview of the Cognitive Enterprise, they are prompted to dive deeper into specific workflows which are activated by the tokens.

Giving meaning to the cognitive enterprise was key: “As enterprises continue on their transformation journey, the Cognitive Enterprise is IBM’s proprietary framework for businesses to solve their toughest business challenges and gain competitive advantage,” said Stephen Leps, Global Content Lead & Editor-in-Chief at IBM Services. “This activation showcases the latest ideas and examples of the Cognitive Enterprise brought to life, and more importantly goes deeper into ‘how’ organizations can derive maximum value through technology and become a smarter business.”

Encapsulating the many connections across a business ecosystem into a concise narrative was one of the most difficult parts of the process, as the cognitive enterprise can operate differently across different industries. “We wanted to offer an engaging, personalized experience for anyone interacting with the experience so they can tailor it to their specific business needs,” say Heather Hosey, VP of Client Engagement at MediaMonks. 

Focus on Form and Function to Drive Impact

Such installations have become increasingly important at a time when our sense of connection has changed. Culture is defined by an intersection of physical and digital ecosystems, and experiential enables brands to tell their stories within a live experience—an important opportunity at a future-focused conference like Davos where so many leaders lay out their vision of the future.

On that note, Paige Kenmore, Senior Experiential Producer at MediaMonks, notes how critical it is to pay attention to the space you have at your disposal at an event or on the floor to ensure an enjoyable user experience. “From the beginning of the project, we were challenged with how to make a big impact experience in a small space meant to serve many purposes throughout the event,” says Kenmore. “Our team delivered on multiple aspects of the project to bring the space to life. This included the architectural design of the activation, content creation, lighting and sound design, software development and signage.”

In addition to IBM, we worked with Microsoft to deliver human stories to attendees. Our mosaic wall installation—composed of a Microsoft Surface Hub 2S surrounded by smaller devices from partners like Samsung, HP, Lenovo and Panasonic—shared stories on 20 different initiatives for social good made possible through Microsoft technology. It has a bit of an artsy, gallery-wall vibe, and invites viewers to stop and engage through the tactile element of touch.

Showcasing the tech giant’s dedication to making an impact, the mosaic wall is quite versatile: it offers three different modes depending on the style of the event (for example, allowing viewers to interact by choosing a story to play on a showroom floor, or functioning as an aesthetically unique backdrop for keynote events). 

These capabilities showcase the value of a multidisciplinary partner that understands both the physical and digital interactions that make a tech-driven experience. In a live experiential exhibition, these multiple components combine into a single coherent experience or interaction that delivers lasting impact to consumers or potential partners. This way, brands not only tell their stories, but immerse viewers in a way that substantiates their values and makes them more tangible and actionable—bringing the future a little bit closer to the present. 

With the emergence of e-commerce giants and online competition, a new breed of future-thinking retailers has emerged. ANA’s 2019 Future of Retail Report notes that “The future involves having the right culture, using innovative approaches and technologies and a having a willingness and the skills to use data to learn from customers.” Future-thinking retailers, who can no longer rely on old strategies built on convenience and variety of product, are seeking to immerse their customers within tech-infused and value-added experiences.

These brands strive to attract and inspire consumers through in-store experiences, and must carefully consider how to bridge together offline and online, digital and physical—a delicate balance through which forward-thinking retailers stand to build equity through innovation and differentiation.

When users register to race at the in-store kiosk, for example, they’re offered the chance to provide a handful of information to personalize their racing experience. From inputting their name and chosen country to represent, to uploading a photo of their face overlaid with a custom helmet rendered much like an AR selfie filter, participants can immediately imagine themselves in the racing cockpit. After selecting a team to race with, they get to “meet” their coach: racers Max Verstappen (Red Bull team) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes-Benz AMG), who offer advice before the race on a seamlessly integrated mobile site and even react to users’ performance afterward.

Of course, in a competitive experience like this, people want bragging rights, so real-time performance results are key. These are offered in metrics like the user’s driving speed and time around each lap. “Racers can take the data from the race and compare how well they did against other people, providing additional insight to their takeaway video,” says Kenmore, referencing the video users receive after completing a race. This personalized takeaway portrays highlights from the race, allowing them to remember the experience or share out to friends.

From pumping up participants as they prepare for the race to offering personalized feedback reactive to their unique performance, the NYCGP experience is built around inspiring a drive for performance and success within a friendly competitive environment—and that’s where the story behind the brand shines through. It’s through these moments that the new flagship store effectively tells the brand story to an audience that might be unfamiliar and unaware, building a strong personal connection in the process.

Puma set out to achieve precisely this in opening its first North American flagship store last week on 5th Avenue, New York City’s premier shopping street. Aiming to immerse shoppers in a seamless mix of technology, art and creativity, the store offers several opportunities for shoppers to engage directly with the brand through apparel customization, in-store classes on printing with streetwear brand Chinatown Market, and smart mirrors that help shoppers browse alternative colors and styles.

“This serves not only as a platform for getting product across, but also as a visualization or embodiment of our presence in this market, and New York in particular,” Adam Petrick, Puma’s Global Director of Brand and Marketing, told The Drum. In that respect, the store isn’t simply about selling products, but providing a space for consumers to engage with and better understand the brand.

Perhaps the most interesting way the store achieves is through its motorsport experience, the NYCGP. The NYCGP invites consumers to (virtually) suit up, strap in and race through the surrounding streets of New York City in professional-grade F1 simulators developed by Evotek—the same simulators that real racers use. MediaMonks supported the experience by developing mobile sites for onboarding and offboarding, personalized registration via in-store kiosks and providing custom code to translate users’ racing performance from the simulator into a global leaderboard, updated in real time.

Build Awareness Through Brand Storytelling

The description above either excites you because you’re an F1 fan, or has you scratching your head asking: F-what? F1 racing isn’t as popular to North Americans as it is to the brand’s home in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, though the motorsport experience aims to change that in a personalized and exhilarating way. “Part of the drive behind Puma’s NYCGP motorsport experience was to help North America recognize F1 the way Europe does,” says Paige Kenmore, Experiential Sr. Producer at MediaMonks.

It also highlights the brand’s longstanding dedication to the sport through its racewear apparel and sponsorship of top teams like Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, both of which are represented in the motorsport experience via brand ambassadors Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. “[Brand] awareness is high, but actual understanding of all the things we’re doing on a daily basis isn’t as high as I’d like it to be,” Petrick told The Drum. By opening the conversation around the brand’s support for the sport, the motorsport experience serves as a great example for how to get those messages across.

“What’s really special about this experience is that this is brand ambassador focused, bringing the team celebrities into the experience to play a significant narrative role,” says Jessica Norton, Executive Producer at MediaMonks. “You’re engaging directly with the team members, and this gives the experience an added layer.”

And this gets at the heart of what makes the experience—and by proxy, the store itself—really special: it eases shoppers into a world that might be new to them in a way that showcases what sets the brand apart from other athletic wear brands. “The NYCGP makes the experience personal and intimate to New York City itself, placing it in a landscape that they’re familiar with,” says Kenmore. In fact, racers and spectators will see the Puma store right there on the circuit track, among other recognizable landmarks like Radio City Music Hall, Central Park, Columbus Circle and more.

Despite the focus on NYC as a locality, the experience isn’t designed just for New Yorkers in mind. “Outside of just the business opportunity that exists here, we’re really excited about the visibility that this store brings, not just in New York but the international contingent,” Puma North America CEO Bob Philion to FN. The NYCGP supports its international visitors by letting racers select a country to represent, resulting in a global competition that reinforces the brand’s presence around the world.

Make a Connection Through Personalization

A strength of retail has historically been its service and attentiveness to consumers. While modern online shopping has enabled great improvements in relevance of product recommendations, in-store experiences infused with innovative tech provide a great opportunity to connect with consumers through emotionally driven experiences that build brand love.

Puma’s not alone in this shifting retail landscape. We’ve recently seen this shift occur led by some of the most iconic names in the space. Toys R Us may have shuttered its doors in the United States in 2018, for example, the retailer has bounced back as TRU Kids Brands, with plans for experiential store-within-a-store concept. Macy’s has piloted something similar with its Story concept, in which products featured follow a specific and ever-changing narrative. And of course, no one can forget Apple’s “town square” concept that effectively transforms the store into a community space for learning about how to make the most out of the company’s technology.

The Puma motorsport experience similarly builds connection with consumers because every interaction—from registration to queueing for a race to offboarding—is narrative-driven and infused with personalization. Tying each interaction to the brand promise is key to differentiation, and the NYCGP succeeds in motivating races and building excitement to compete as they await their turn on the circuit.

Retail just isn’t what it used to be. The Apple Store is no longer just a store, but is branded a “town center” where shoppers can pick up skills, and Amazon Go stores are revolutionizing retail by offering close integration with its website’s digital features. And it’s not just the future-focused tech brands that are reinventing retail; even the most stalwart retailers like Macy’s are poised to put their fun spin on the old formula, as seen in its new store-within-a-store, “Story.”

The thread that connects each of these developments is the effort to provide consumers with an experience as they shop. But while this discussion is still largely an abstract one in the west, the transformation from storefront to product showroom is already complete in eastern markets like China. “Going in-store gives customers the opportunity to see and interact with the brand’s products, but the purchasing is still usually done online here,” says Thomas Dohm, a Sr. Producer at MediaMonks based in Singapore.

The retailers Dohm is talking about have adapted to customer’s online shopping behaviors rather than try to fight against them. And this is a smart approach, because digital touchpoints and brick-and-mortar retail have a symbiotic effect on one another: in its “The Art And Science Of Retail eCommerce” report, Forrester Research estimates that “digital touchpoints impacted 51% of the $3.7 trillion total US retail market in 2018,” though only 14% of the US retail purchases occurred online, according to the same report.

These findings suggest that digital touchpoints play a significant role in offline purchasing decisions as well as online ones, which provides brick-and-mortar retailers an opportunity to better utilize digital (through which consumers often initiate product research) to support their business. In-store installations provide a unique way for brands to marry their digital strategies with in-store visits. Using two examples of in-store installations hailing from the east, we’re diving into what makes an effective, compelling experience that gets feet through the door.

Plan Around the Store Environment

Retailers must plan the in-store experience around the environments that will host them. A flagship location, for example, can offer plenty of space for high-profile experiential—and it may already attract throngs of shoppers who can participate and build buzz. Digital experiential can help put general store locations on the map, but retailers must understand the variables present—such as local market differences, square footage available, flow of foot traffic and more—when seeking to translate an experience across different stores.

“Local markets have all sorts of budgets, available space in store and of course maturity in experiential activation,” says Dohm. Dohm worked on a retail experience for Calvin Klein’s 37.5 line of thermoregulating jeans, which rolled out to APAC markets and walks users through a poetic VR experience that prompts them to reflect on temperature. This experience came in several tiers depending on the space and resources available in the stores where it was installed: “We approached the Calvin Klein 37.5 activation in a way that would be modular and flexible to cater to these factors,” says Dohm.

Retailers must begin by zeroing in on the core of the experience that would fit within any store—for the Calvin Klein installation, this included the VR headset and accompanying touchscreen device—then developing tiers of experience that enhance it where possible. With the Calvin Klein activation, for example, stores with the space to spare included a tiny house installation that drew attention and provided shoppers with a partitioned space to strap on the headset. In its largest iteration, dressing room-inspired places could be used to fully immerse the shopper.

The difference between experiences doesn’t have to be drastic. For example, Nike got shoppers running to six of their Chinese stores by prompting them to launch a rocket through the power of their sprint on a treadmill. At their flagship location in Shanghai, Nike offered a multiplayer variation in which users could compete with their friends. The difference here is minimal, yet adds a remarkable competitive layer on top of the experience by making the most of the space available.

Understand Local Market Differences

If you plan on rolling your experience out to several markets, don’t treat localization as an afterthought. Good localization isn’t just a matter of translating aspects of the experience; you’ll also need a clear understanding of behaviors that are unique to the different markets that you target. As retail provides a direct touchpoint for consumers to meet and engage with your brand on an individualized level, it’s crucial that your retail experience is relevant and comprehensible to local audiences.

This can be as innocuous as a registration form. The Calvin Klein 37.5 activation, which rolled out to four APAC markets, prompted users to provide contact details. For stores in China, it made sense to enable signups through WeChat—the reigning messaging app in China that many shoppers use as an e-wallet. For markets where WeChat is less common for retail and commerce, registration via email was the default channel. Brands should likewise identify the channels that are most popular or engaging for shoppers to understand the best way to tie the in-store experience back to an overall digital strategy.

Planning around the nuances of a local market at early stages of the creative process also highlights opportunities for transcreation to save time. An important feature of the Calvin Klein experience is a meditative narration that focuses the user’s attention on the temperature around them, prompting them to reflect on the elements, but the poetic narration posed a challenge for offering relevance among local audiences. “The nature of the experience was intentionally very abstract,” said Dohm. “But this was not something that translated easily into Mandarin, so we transcreated the copy to make it more pragmatic.” Effective transcreation enabled the team to roll out to all markets within eight weeks.

Give Shoppers Something to Take Away

Shoppers love to share their experiences, and in-store installations should support this need for maximum effectiveness. This not only reminds users of the product your experience promotes, but can also expand its reach by driving user-generated content (UGC) through social. While the main goal in providing a digital takeaway should be to commemorate the experience, providing a suggested hashtag or offering a digital portal that collects UGC can also prompt shares.

“It’s great to give people something to remember their experience by,” says Dohm. “If it was a positive experience, they’ll hopefully share that on social media channels.” Content that best fits this purpose is that which documents the experience: a photo, video or even a gif that captures the magic of the experience in a personalized way. The Calvin Klein activation lets users walk away with a heatmap selfie—a clever way to distill the experience’s concept behind the promoted thermoregulating jeans. The Nike experience, meanwhile, provides shoppers with a video of their sprint that includes their personal record to encourage sharing via WeChat.

In essence, digital retail experiences should not only inform shoppers, but provide a sense of fun. In-store experiential that pulls this off successfully delights consumers while helping them understand the unique features or value of your products. As retailers are still adapting to an industry disrupted by digital and ecommerce in the west, brick-and-mortar retailers should act now to carve out a space and land on top.

While a clear distinction between art and advertising may not always exist, consumers have a sixth sense for ads that tug at the heartstrings with one hand and their wallets with another.

What makes the difference between a campaign that delightfully intervenes rather than one that merely interrupts, and how can you begin to develop and conceptualize such a creative piece? With MediaMonks’ Water Ripples installation as an example (produced in collaboration with Stella Artois, Mother New York and Water.org), we’re diving into three main ingredients that make up an artful intervention.

And that’s really the test for elevating something to an art form—helping your audience situate themselves and your brand within a larger framework of social good, taking them outside of themselves and their everyday. While aesthetic beauty is ideal for creating a memorable campaign, it’s that self-identification with the human condition that leaves a lasting impact.

Thirsty for more? Read more about Water Ripples from FWA.

1. A Culturally Relevant Purpose

Both works of art and advertising evoke emotion in the audience, which means a particularly artistic campaign should have a clear, culturally relevant value proposition or purpose. A good place to find inspiration is to back a cause or highlight an issue that you feel aligns with your business or audience. And consumers agree: to a Sprout Social study from earlier this year, about two thirds of them think it’s important for brands to take a social stance, so don’t be shy. While it may seem risky, an experience or campaign that drives social good connects to audiences on a human level–and demonstrates your business’ desire to be socially responsible. Even if you aren’t able to solve the world’s problems, you can at least aim to unite people together or ask them to contemplate their place in society, just like any work of art or literature would.

The Water Ripples piece aimed to portray Stella Artois’ care for the clean water effort. And that’s a great cause for a brewery: beer is 90 to 95% water, after all. Through the use of 600 motor-controlled water droplets to replicate the look of rippling water, the installation beautifully depicted the “rippling effect” that the brand and installation participants made in social impact.

2. An Experience that Enhances the Environment

Whether you’re building a large-scale art installation or want to play with a digital platform in a unique way, cleverly intervening with your audience’s everyday environment can go a long way in striking an emotional or empathetic connection between themselves and your cause.

While the Water Ripples’ most outstanding feature is its visuals, its biggest effect on viewers and participants was that it provided a quiet, contemplative and meditative space—a stark contrast to the hustle-and-bustle of Grand Central Station during commuting time.

3. Audience Agency

Every good campaign should have a call to action, but an artistic one should offer a call to contribution—and that contribution should prompt participants to feel as though they’ve made a significant impact or connection with other people in the world (and hopefully your brand, too). How do you allow participants to immerse themselves in the cause by providing an experience?

To answer this question, the team behind the Water Ripples installation accounted for several tiers of participation, including those who answered the call to contribution as well as those who were simply passing by. Participants who made a financial contribution by purchasing a limited-edition Stella Artois chalice were able to make the water ripple, symbolically signifying the impact of their participation—and providing delight to those viewing from afar with the beautiful show.

Helping your audience place themselves within the grand scheme of the human experience doesn’t have to be that lofty—sometimes it’s as simple as designing a specific place for photo-ops and Instagram-worthy moments.

Today’s consumers privilege experiences over things, while brands seek to capture audiences’ attention in unique and innovative ways. A natural trend in response to both is the brand activation: moments or events that reinvent the space around them or make the impossible, possible.

Experiential events may range from offline installations to comprehensive, larger-than-life livestreams that compress time and space to deliver wild experiences to far-flung audiences. Experiential and brand activations typically build buzz around a brand or product, but most importantly they should celebrate what makes those things unique through creative, inventive spectacles.

At the 2019 SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, for example, on-demand food delivery service DoorDash celebrated the festival’s love for tacos and its own penchant for fast, dependable delivery by inviting attendees to a tiny home installation, where hungry participants could experience at-home delivery away from home. By ordering through a custom app and even answering a door to get their meal, the activation made for a fun twist on the experience of dining out—or in.

While this style of experience is rewarding for those who are able to attend, why not share the fun with a wider audience? Bolstered by streaming platforms, live activations add a new layer to the experience through audience interaction. “Live experiential is all about building innovative and interactive experiences while amplifying their online reach through livestream opportunities,” says Ciaran Woods, Producer at MediaMonks São Paolo. Through live experiential, brands can scale up the experience and go beyond simply building buzz.

Tiers of Amplification

Every experience has an air of FOMO (fear of missing out) about it, making them great for prompting user-generated content and social buzz whether online or off. For simpler experiences that aren’t broadcast to live platforms, this can manifest in providing Instagram-ready spaces or share-worthy moments. When influencers are added to the mix, you can take the conversation even further. For example, laundry detergent brand Skip invited influencers to try on outfits in front of a smart mirror that measured their excitement about them, allowing them to take home anything that scored high on the excitement meter. The event resulted in footage and UGC that drove conversation online about the brand.

But social only goes so far, and is often one-sided in terms of audiences living vicariously through the fewer in-person attendees. Live experiential can offer all the social amplification discussed above, while also providing a more level playing field on the amount of influence and enjoyment that distant audiences can have with the experience. And that interactivity is key: according to Woods, “Viewer interaction must be ingrained in the experience. The viewer has a say.” In other words, live experiential should not only ask viewers to watch, but to act.

Portraying the Brand Value

The best experiential activations reflect their brands’ offerings in a fun, unique way. Take Xfinity’s “Project Dead Zone” for example, in which paranormal investigators broadcasted their exploration of the Winchester Mystery House—the largest haunted house in the US—to an audience of over 3 million live viewers, who offered the investigators words of encouragement via Periscope and Twitter.

In this case, the tech behind the broadcast itself highlighted the brand’s value. In order to broadcast all throughout the spooky house, the crew made use of Xfinity’s xFi Pod series of WiFi extenders. As viewers watched in horror while investigators disappeared one after another, one thing that never went missing over the course of the stream was a stable connection.

Finding this value and creatively building upon it is among the most fun parts of designing an experience. It can also be the most challenging, especially when it comes to making such ideas a reality. For organizations that don’t know where to start their idea (or how to execute loftier goals), a creative and production partnership can help to lend shape to the experience—all by keeping viewers’ experience in mind. “What makes these experiences cool is having a commentator booth you can cut to, or a reporter on the ground,” says Woods. “Basically, treat it like the Super Bowl.” Because a key aspect of live experiential is how it will be broadcast to far-away audiences, it’s important that brands don’t lose sight of production needs.

Supporting User Interactions

Because viewer interaction is essential to live experiential, brands interested in hosting such activations must familiarize themselves with interactions and features unique to the livestreaming platforms available. While live experiential can be platform agnostic, designing your experience with specific interaction triggers in mind helps to make it the best it can be.

Perhaps the most feature-rich of the major livestreaming platforms is Twitch, which supports open-source, custom “Twitch Extensions” that prompt viewers to interact with a stream in unique ways. These can include minigames that relate in some way to what users are watching, heatmaps tracking viewer cursors, scoreboards, voting and more—because the technology is open-source, the possibilities are endless.

The fact that Twitch has such robust viewer interactions supported lends to the fact that it’s purely a livestreaming platform. It also has a more niche audience, though alternatives such as YouTube and Facebook offer massive userbases and reach. Facebook’s major interaction outside of chat is its emoji-style reactions: viewers can select an emoji that represents how they feel about what they’re watching in that specific moment. And don’t forget more mobile-focused broadcast platforms like Periscope and Instagram, which are lighter in terms of features but lend a unique level of authenticity.

No matter the platform (or platforms) you choose, “the trick is to build a system that can translate those interactions into real-world effects,” says Woods. This requires a mature technical understanding and a flair for innovation—and is an area in which working with a creative partner from the earliest stage of the project makes the most sense. In addition to making these interactions possible, a partner may also develop an entire content package for how the experience can enjoy a life beyond the initial broadcast—like through film.

No matter the type of experiential you seek to support, the key is to highlight what makes your brand unique in a fun, innovative way—then reward your audience for their enthusiasm to engage with it. Integrating online platforms through social sharing or livestreaming helps to spread that sense of fun far and wide, providing brands with the opportunity to lead the conversation that surrounds them. It’s time to go big or go home—but no matter where you go, ensure your audience is provided with opportunities to engage.