When done right, immersive technology transforms an ordinary event into an unforgettable adventure, making it easier and much more natural for consumers to engage with your brand.
Event attendees now want more than just the usual experiences, making it increasingly difficult to impress them and create a significant impact. To create an experience that genuinely immerses, enlightens and inspires your audience, the use of engaging and future-facing technology can be a powerful tool in creating incredible memories.
The trend of experiential brand experiences isn’t new, in fact, it’s seen huge growth in the last few years. Although this trend has undoubtedly been heavily impacted by the global pandemic, many industries have quickly and effectively transitioned to virtual and hybrid experiences that bring people together – further showcasing just how important technology has been!
So how can immersive technology help to captivate and engage your event audience?
Here are a just few ways:
- Conjure up a new world for your customer:
VR and AR allows brands to design their event thematically, transforming their venues to tell a story, and create a truly immersive world! Artificial Intelligence can also help to bring the stories around your event to life, by learning from user interaction and reaction, and predicting your customers’ wants and needs instantaneously.
Another powerful combination is born when you combine physical and digital experiences in order to create a new form of immersive technology, called ambient interactivity. Ambient interactivity refers to interactive forms built into or embedded within physical environments, such as interactive tables, windows, and walls. These forms afford a more natural, user-friendly interactivity that can easily compliment an event theme or brand story.
- Creating a personalised event experience:
Brands already use personalised strategies for mobile, desktop and web platforms, so why not take this one step further by using AR, VR and AI for an event experience that engages the user on a more personal level?
Through the use of smart technology such as virtual assistants and AI, brands can gain a detailed view of customer preferences, and can therefore provide curated and personalised programs to consumers – completely live – throughout an event! This can include new smart badge technology or even a mobile app that tracks attendee activity, providing them with engaging interactions such as personalised event check in, tailored signage or even instant access to contextual content and social media feeds.
- Let customers try-before-they-buy in a whole new way:
Augmented reality provides a hassle free ‘try-before-you-buy’ option for consumers, allowing them to try hundreds of products from the comfort of their fingertips before they purchase. This can help to save time and provides a lot more choice for consumers, making it the perfect interactive addition for a brand activation, new product launch or even an exclusive product drop.
We can take this one step further and create hybrid experiences for consumers who are unable to attend an event in person – 3D virtual runway shows allow consumers to seamlessly see your collection drop, or even shop and ‘try-on’ your catalogue from the comfort of their homes!
- Give consumers a virtual front row seat:
By taking their experiences online, many brands have opened themselves up to a much larger audience than ever before. This increases exposure and allows access by those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to due to geographical barriers.
Industries such as travel and music are now leveraging this immersive technology to engage their audience in a better way, such as allowing users to remotely access concerts via their headsets and get themselves front row seats! It’s increasingly important that brands take a hybrid virtual/physical approach to cater to virtual attendees who can now be included in the conversation.
- Continuing the experience on mobile and social:
Mobile has helped to fuel greater use of immersive media in events, especially augmented reality. Users can now ‘gain a window’ into VR experiences simply by using their smartphones!
As pressure mounts on brands to stand out from the crowd and provide a ‘never-seen-before’ experience for their event attendees, the amplification of immersive experiences on social media is more critical than ever. AR, VR and AI can help to create that wow factor, and provide the emotional elements needed for your consumers to convey the uniqueness of your event to their own audiences across social media, thereby drastically increasing your reach!
These new technologies will undoubtedly overcome many of the current limitations faced by event organisers and help brands to expand their reach, and stand out from their competitors by providing truly memorable interactive experiences. The future looks exciting with the immersive technologies waiting to be explored!
Are you ready to captivate your event audiences using immersive retail technology? Get in touch and let’s how we can work together to tell your brand story!
In 2020, Fashion Foresight explored what the possibility of digital worlds and how they could be created, we explored what value and purpose it would serve and in partnership with Africa Fashion Foundation we created fashion and retails entry into the metaverse called Semblance World click to find out more!