Sometimes as marketing professionals, we can get caught up with idea of presenting ideas that are entirely unique, never-before-seen, wildly creative. We dream of stumbling upon a new technology and using it in a previously unthought of way to surprise and delight our audiences. As someone who has worked in experiential marketing for over a decade now. I still have this fantasy at the brainstorm phase of every project. Then I remind myself of all the times I’ve seen technology fail in the fast moving world of events. Timelines are crunched, set up time is minimal and the challenges/variables are many! Beginning my career as I junior designer at my first creative agency, I remember an ambitious project for a running company. We had designed a towering LED screen and platform where participants laced up new running shoes and ran through gamified levels on-screen to test the shoes. The build was slick and the technology impressive. We rolled out the experience to the first stop and the technological issues began. When the sun hit the game sensors just right, the participants wouldn’t be registered on screen. We had to cover our impressive build with curtains to screen the technology. Then the connected LED screens began to have issues from the wear and tear and transport. Today I can’t even remember all the issues we experienced on that tour but remember it as an albatross and cautionary tale I like to tell our clients and design team.
Today when we concept for events, I don’t discourage the use of technology or thinking big when it comes to our events but I always like to play devil’s advocate and anticipate all the ways that technology could fail us. Are we setting ourselves up for ultimate failure with an idea? What’s the backup plan? What’s the backup plan for the backup plan? How can we make sure an experience is still positive and productive even if one of our components was suddenly unavailable?
There’s a reason why most events are ultimately analog at their core and the technology tried and true. There’s also the acknowledgement that some things just work. For example, some of the hottest marketing real estate at Coachella is the billboards lining the highway to the festival. Artists and marketers vie for the opportunity to market on one of the oldest forms of advertising. It’s quickly become a tradition and contest of who can be the most creative with an inherently limited medium.
As you look into experiential marketing for your brand or see photos of an event that looked impressive, really examine what the technological components of the event were. Odds are they aren’t much more than a nice physical build and some slick graphics!