“Television award shows are seeing a decline in viewership, while social media and audience expectations have challenged what an award show should even be,” says Eric W. Shamlin, Media.Monk’s Global Head of Entertainment. “Today the audience is more demanding and in more control than ever before.”

Digital culture has already made its mark in mainstream ceremonies, as exhibited in TikTok’s influence over the Best New Artist category at this year’s GRAMMYS. But more broadly speaking, the internet has played a substantial role in shaping culture through music. This trend is proven by the Billboard Song Breaker Chart, a monthly music industry chart co-created with Logitech For Creators, to spotlight trendsetting creators who are driving music consumption through content creation and positively disrupting the traditional music business model.

This year the second annual Song Breaker Awards, presented by Logitech For Creators, is putting those names on display. The ceremony will take place in Roblox on April 30 at 10 a.m. PST, pulling back the velvet rope to deliver a creator-centered, fun-first experience honoring ten individuals driving culture. As reported by Fast Company, it’s the first music award show in the metaverse and will be hosted by Bretman Rock. The experience culminates in performances by singer-songwriter GAYLE and multi-GRAMMY award-winning artist Lizzo, who is making her metaverse debut with a new single. But more importantly, the show offers a blueprint to how metaverse worlds can uniquely celebrate and enable creativity at an unprecedented scale.

"In re-imagining what a creator-focused award show could look like in the metaverse, we sought a partner that could guide us in this brand new space,” said Meridith Rojas, Global Head of Talent and Entertainment, Logitech. "In order to create for this format, you need to know this format. Media.Monks' inclusion of narrative and game-play resulted in a truly vibrant and engaging environment and production that's sure to surprise and delight the audience."

An Awards Show Starring… You

Owing to the Song Breaker Awards’ roots in digital creativity, Roblox itself is a robust platform for creative expression. It makes game and experience development easy for audiences with little to no background in programming, which has sparked a thriving creator community of 49.5 million average daily active users in Q4 2021. This makes the platform an ideal space for an engaging twist on musical award shows—if you know what the community values.

We partnered with Kurt Bieg, Chief Game Designer at Simple Machine, to create an experience that feels authentic and engaging to the Roblox community. “We built the show around a story that kids will care about,” says Bieg, teasing a high-stakes plot that players will engage with in real time. But focusing on a participatory narrative doesn’t mean the award ceremony itself falls into the background. “As viewers will see, the honorees will play a key role in shaping the story. It supports Logitech For Creators’ promise, ‘Together we create,’” says Bieg.

Once inside the world, attendees can explore a futuristic city tricked out with gamified and interactive elements, from larger-than-life selfies, a shop stocked with digital Lizzo and Logitech merch, and even a roller coaster that glides throughout the city’s borders. What makes this space unique to other high-profile Roblox experiences is that the entire event takes place within one seamless environment. “Usually, Roblox experiences play out across a series of scenes like dioramas, but ours is one persistent world,” says Bieg.

In that respect, the Song Breaker Awards might be more like a physically embodied event than initially expected. “We treated the show more like a traditional stage, where set pieces are moving in and out,” says Brett Burton, Creative Director at Media.Monks. “It seems like an old-fashioned way of doing things, but it is technically challenging.”

Interactive Environments Range from Chill to Thrill

As people explore the city, they’re met with a series of experiences that build up excitement before the big show—perhaps the flashiest being the Selfie XL, a unique innovation developed for the Song Breaker Awards. Rather than take a photo, the camera recreates players’ avatars with a clone that towers over the city skyline for everyone to see.

The Selfie XL is made possible through a quirk in the way selfies  function in the platform. When you take a photo in Roblox, the program renders a copy of the scene and flattens it into a 2D image. “We thought, ‘If we’re cloning the models, why don’t we just make them ginormous and not flatten them?’” says Bieg, who expects fans will try to push the Selfie XL to its limits, like trying to fit as many people as possible in its field of view.

A roller coaster designed to look like Logitech mice makes for another way to immerse oneself in the city as it travels across various places of interest. It’s just one of many creative nods to popular Logitech products that players may recognize from their own setups. “We wanted to turn Logitech’s products into unique experiences that would surprise everyone,” says Burton. “We wanted to incorporate them in ways that didn’t feel heavy handed but fit the world.”

Taking another cue from amusement park design, these main attractions—outside of the musical performances and award ceremony itself—are cleverly spaced out to invite attendees to explore around the entire city. Burton notes that many nooks and crannies are designed to be meme-able to encourage sharing—think of them like the virtual version of selfie stations you might find at a zoo or a museum. As people wander, they may uncover a handful of Creator Coins that unlock exclusive dances and animations to uniquely express themselves throughout the show.

Doubling Down on Creative Expression

Speaking of expressing oneself, one of the most fun things about Roblox is outfitting your avatar and showing off your style. Meanwhile, one of the best parts of seeing a good show is hitting the merch store for a memento that expresses your fandom. Those who attend the Song Breaker Awards can do both by exploring an immersive shop filled with virtual Lizzo merch and gear based on Logitech products, like a Blue Yeti microphone arm or an Astro headset.

The approach to merch hearkens back to Logitech For Creators’ purpose in supporting digital content creators. “We thought around what would make the merch valuable to someone playing Roblox. The idea was to let people dress themselves like a walking influencer,” says Bieg. Some of the pieces, like a body suit in the shape of a mouse, are sillier—serving the community’s love for funniness and memes.

Of course, the headlining experience of the Song Breaker Awards is the show itself, as well as lifelike virtual performances by GAYLE and Lizzo using motion capture. Viewers will also get to see MeganPlays (known as “The Peachy Princess of Roblox”), musician and activist Jaden Smith and Twitch streamer Shroud throughout the event. But beware: we hear that a mischief maker may crash the party to throw things into disarray. Can the power of creativity and community set things right?

“From start to finish, the level of detail that went into designing a fully-immersive and interactive world inside Roblox is truly unmatched,” said Nick Cicchetti, Media.Monks Senior Producer. “Beyond that, the narrative and storytelling that ties the performances together with internet culture to bring everyone in the audience from passive viewer to active participant is something that can only be done in a new environment made possible by technology and creativity. I’m thrilled to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the metaverse to bring the Song Breaker Awards to life, and I can’t wait for everyone to experience it firsthand.” 

You can explore the Song Breaker Awards pre-show area in Roblox right now. Look forward to the main event on Saturday, April 30 at 10 a.m. PST with three additional screenings throughout the weekend.

But generating value is where the challenge usually lies. Take a look at the world of experiential marketing, and you’ll find most brands use it almost exclusively as a way to kick off a product launch or a specific release. But to treat these experiences merely as a one-and-off strategy is to miss out on the opportunity to inspire people to build a long-lasting relationship with your brand—one that goes beyond the release of a specific product, and instead keeps them coming back for more.

Make People the Heroes of an Unforgettable Experience

Experience is an essential element of customer engagement, which makes it important to connect with audiences in ways that stand out and are unique to your brand. The shape that these experiences will take ultimately comes down to your goals. “Experiential marketing is so broad that most brands struggle to identify what their activation should look like, or where to start,” explains Kaliszewski. “The first stage is one of discovery and collaboration, where we try to identify what kind of medium will help us achieve our objectives.”

In that exploration stage, you may find that a long-term installation better suits your requirements. When Pepsi wanted to build an experience reflecting its historic partnership with the Super Bowl Halftime Show, our colleagues at Jam3 worked with them to create a permanent installation cementing the brand’s commitment to the iconic annual concert. The experience at Hersheypark in Pennsylvania features private performance pods with gesture-based interaction and navigation. Inside, guests can create their own pop star avatars and select a killer track from artists like Imagine Dragons or the Black Eyed Peas. When the music starts, they can let loose and bust out their best moves while the avatar on screen matches their movements, all in a fully touchless experience that hits on the fun and excitement of the Halftime Show.

A permanent installation like this one lets you shape new spaces for consumers to experience your brand firsthand. Of course, experiences can come in many forms. Whether your experience is a permanent installation or a temporary one, one thing is true for them all: the more immersive it is, the more affinity, loyalty and awareness it drives.

Valuable Brand Activations Enhance Their Surroundings

It’s easy to think of experiential activations as self-contained spaces. But some of the most effective ones make clever use of their surroundings in order to tap more authentically into a community or cultural moment. For experiences that stand out, it is sometimes better to blend in—with a unique twist.

Earlier this year, the Tribeca Film Festival marked the return of in-person cultural experiences in New York City. With the aim of feeding the locals’ passion for film, we partnered with DoorDash to build a classic movie theater concession stand combined with a typical NYC deli ticket counter. Packed with bagels, pretzels and anything you would normally order through DoorDash, the space felt familiar to hungry viewers—until it was time to make an order. In exchange for their food (and a redeemable coupon from DoorDash) visitors were invited to perform the line of dialogue written on their ticket.

The concession stand’s ability to capture the unique interest of festival film fans led to thousands of cumulative impressions on social media as people shared their attempts to reenact iconic scenes.  Ciaran Woods, VP Experiential & Virtual Events, explains, “For us, experiential has always been focused on online amplification, and now the industry has grown accustomed to its benefits. With this kind of event, virtualization continues to be cost-effective: you can get the value of a physical venue while amplifying your reach online.”

Turning Traditional into Transformational

All things considered, it’s important to focus on the consumer at the heart of the experience at all times. So no matter what, default to simply providing an experience that’s fun and couldn’t have been made possible without your brand.

For the release of the new Netflix film “Army of the Dead,” we teamed up with advertising agencies Dziadek do orzechów and Plej to turn Warsaw’s passersby into zombie-apocalypse survivors. Playing for the chance to win official Netflix merchandise, visitors could use their phones to control their character as they make their way through an abandoned casino, take as much money as possible and wipe out any zombies that they encountered along the way.

Combining an in-person experience with a compelling digital layer, we amplified the level of engagement and turned the film’s release into a very tangible experience. Moreover, the act of blending real-world objects with augmented sets—whether AR, VR or any immersive technology—enables a new breed of experiences that can hardly be replicated. 

When done right, experiential marketing can imprint people's memories, which then translates into brand awareness, affinity and loyalty. But the most compelling activations provide true value for audiences and their communities beyond simply promoting a specific product. When in doubt, focus on crafting new, original concepts for how you present your brand to consumers every day, and the results will follow.

Compared to other regions in the northern side of the world, Covid-19 vaccines are rolling out a bit slower in South America. Therefore, Brazilian brands may not deem it necessary to start thinking about in-person events yet. But sooner or later, the distancing rules established by the pandemic will be lifted completely—and by the time that happens, brands will have to be fully prepared to retake the physical scene, or fall behind their competition.

As Partner and Business Director at Media.Monks, I work hand in hand with our global virtual events and experiential team. I’ve seen how excited some brands are to give consumers onsite experiences, but I’m also aware of the countless benefits that virtualization has brought to our industry. There’s no way of knowing exactly how the upcoming months will play out, but one thing is certain: as we move forward, marketers will have to bring the best of both worlds to provide real value to their consumers. 

The Rise of Hybrid Experiences

When I look back at what we’ve accomplished since the start of last year, I can barely wrap my head around it. Together with my experiential team, we’ve developed online museums, virtual carnivals, hosted the World Press Freedom Conference and more. Each of these experiences were conceived at a time when virtualization was the only option; now, just think of the myriads of options we’ll have at hand once we add physical elements to the equation.

Take hybrid experiences, for example, a model that’s blurring the lines between the possible and impossible with experiences that haven’t been thought of before. By definition, hybrid experiences involve an in-person experience augmented with virtual elements. How these come together depends on your goals as a marketer: it’s all about leveraging the benefits of both online and offline experiences and adapting it to your requirements. The digital element can be as small as a digital exchange of contact information with attendees, or as big as a robust virtual platform broadcasting an in-person conference to remote audiences. 

Naturally, different setups will have different costs, but with a more flexible range of possibilities, brands don’t need the largest budget in the market to deliver compelling experiences. The right combination of in-person value and online amplification can be more cost-effective than just another broadcast or purely offline installation.

One Small Step for Marketers, One Giant Leap for Sustainability

It goes without saying that social distancing taught us a lot about how to both keep production going and engage with audiences remotely. Virtualization allowed us to bring people together in unexpected ways, tearing down the physical barriers to meet faraway audiences. That desire to fuel online amplification while safeguarding consumers’ ability to interact with a brand is what gave way to the development and release of LiveXP—our internal tool that connects audiences and performers by enabling true two-way communication. 

Tools like LiveXP allow brands to give virtual events a deeper level of interactivity, and have paved the way for digital events of the highest caliber. BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival is a great example of this: for its 2020 edition, one of New York City’s longest-running outdoor performing arts festivals became a digital destination where everyone around the globe could meet from home. The purely digital experience extended the local event beyond a single location—and when in-person concerts return, one can imagine the value in connecting people from afar will remain. I strongly believe these types of experiences are not going anywhere.

We can go hybrid on the production front, too. In the last year and a half, we’ve built up a muscle for getting the show on the road with fewer people on site and less need for traveling. Not only is this cost-effective; it also supports our commitment to sustainability, as travel is one of the biggest contributors to an event’s carbon footprint. Think about it: what’s the use of flying an entire team across the country when you can easily keep production going remotely? This will be a permanent change of mindset, not just a response to the pandemic.

Leaving the Door Open for Creativity

As we move toward hybrid experiences, sanitation guidelines will continue to play a bigger role. Commitment to safety will go beyond producing remotely; brands will have to make sure they’re doing everything they can to keep people safe in front of and behind the scenes, going as far as hiring a Covid-19 compliance officer. 

The implementation of sanitary guidelines can be intimidating for some, but don’t shy away from them. Think about how they can give way to creative opportunities and innovation. Only a few weeks ago, Pepsi inaugurated a permanent exhibition at a theme park in Pennsylvania that uses gesture-based technology. This experience, made in collaboration with Jam3, wouldn’t have ended up being as unique without the need for touchless interactivity.

Nowadays, both brands and audiences want to be more efficient with their time and resources, which is a key reason why hybrid experiences will take the main stage in upcoming years. With hybrid platforms, brands can virtually deliver more content with less physical or monetary constraints, while simultaneously combining the thrill and excitement of onsite action. Or they can leverage virtual platforms to include more diverse audiences through greater accessibility. 

Hybrid experiences are more than another option to add to the marketing mix. They’re the natural response to how consumers are interacting and engaging with the world around them, and a way for brands to meet them where they are. There’s a new, expanded universe of opportunities before us to connect with consumers, and technology is on our side to deliver those innovative experiences that will remain engraved on their memories—whether they experience it physically, virtually or both.

This article was originally published in Portuguese by Fast Company Brazil.