There’s been a lot of talk lately about how we’re putting a “game layer” over everything in our lives. Everything, including news, marketing and advertising, needs to be experienced.
Merely sharing information or telling people why they should buy your product is quaint, outdated.
Sometimes the experience is simply a game, just for fun. Such as the bookmarklet that turns any web page into a game of Asteroids. That’s OK, I understand if you want to check it out and play a little. I’ll be here, waiting.
Back? That was fun, right?
Sure, that was what some might call “pointless.” It didn’t achieve anything. In fact, after BuzzFeed posted it last week, productivity around the nation may have screeched to a halt for a little while. (Note to my bosses: I only played it for research. I swear.)
Via Flickr user RetroRebirth
But it was what people were talking about online for a while. As some might say – you can’t buy that kind of publicity.
Now imagine if the creator of that bookmarklet had been a marketer (he’s NOT, I’m just trying to make a point – bear with me). The movie version of the old Atari game is in the works. Now everyone’s playing Asteroids all over the place. Imagine the marketing potential for that.
The point is, you can’t just advertise to the masses. The good news is that you can get the masses to do your marketing for you. User-generated content often brings to mind sites like I Can Haz Cheezburger, Digg or BuzzFeed. It’s also being used – successfully – by major brands.
Vince Broady of @thisMoment showed examples of work his company had done for Toyota, Disney and others at a Web 2.0 Expo sponsored session last week.
Disney launched Let the Memories Begin, which allows users to upload photos and stories about their visits to Disney properties and view others’ “memories.” Hundreds of folks have posted their stories about their theme parks, cruises and other vacations.
Obviously, Disney’s ultimate goal is not to just make a happy place online where people can share their memories. Their ultimate goal is to show how much people enjoy their theme parks, cruises and other vacation packages.
Disney is succeeding in its marketing, but the people doing what traditional advertisers did are regular folk. And it’s being marketed as a shared experience. Who doesn’t love the Happiest Place on Earth? Now anyone who does can re-experience it through others’ experiences.
Some in the audiences of more than one panel at Web 2.0 kept asking how this experiential marketing translates into sales – which is, after all, the goal for most brands.
They didn’t seem too satisfied with the answer – as the Magic 8-Ball might have said: “Reply hazy.”
Some may have been a bit more convinced after listening to Nick Bilton of the New York Times tell the crowd during his keynote talk that those technological innovators — the porn industry — told him that what they were selling was not simply naked people having sex. They were selling an experience.
It’s still too early in the game to see how, exactly, these efforts will translate into sales for non-sex-related industries.
What is clear is that the most successful companies out there are using social media to create experiences for their customers — and keeping the customers engaged and happy can’t be a bad thing, right?
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