Pop quiz! What do Meow Wolf, Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, Disney Imagineering, and Ringling Bros. have in frequent? They’ve all sought out in the present day’s visitor as a marketing consultant.
However in the present day’s grasp is… truly not a grasp of advertising and marketing in any respect. In actual fact, he’s by no means labored a day in advertising and marketing. However he actually wrote the ebook on interactive performance.
And as advertising and marketing leaders pour huge budgets into branded experiences, stay occasions, and interactive model activations, you’re going to need to hear what he has to say.
Title: Jeff Wirth, Co-founder of the Interactive PlayLab
Job: Designs, directs, and consults on interactive experiences, digital world purposes, and stay immersive fiction
Declare to fame: Did you see the checklist of corporations he’s labored with?!
Enjoyable truth: Began his profession as a clown for the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus
Lesson 1: Start on the finish.
When designing your interactive expertise, Wirth recommends first fascinated by what you need individuals to stroll away with. No, not a buying bag filled with merch. Suppose extra philosophically.
“What would you like folks to grasp after the activation that they didn’t perceive earlier than?”
For Meow Wolf or Cirque du Soleil, that could be discovering a childlike sense of surprise. For a model activation or advertising and marketing occasion, it’ll be… one thing no much less deep, truly.
Certain, you possibly can intention for them to stroll away with some product data — if you’d like them to neglect it by the point they get again to their automotive. Actually memorable experiences intention for one thing extra profound.
Wirth says step 2 is asking: “How will we make it so we don’t inform them what to grasp? We create a context inside which they’ve a chance to uncover that.”
That context is the skeleton on your occasion or expertise design.
However Wirth emphasizes that this should solely be a chance — making an attempt to drive a participant to a particular conclusion is, to his thoughts, each unethical and doubtlessly damaging. Which brings us to Lesson 2.
Lesson 2: Empower your individuals to suppose for themselves.
“Put the precedence on the participant’s capability to suppose for themselves,” Wirth advises.
As an anti-example, he shares the story of a pharmaceutical firm that approached him to create an interactive expertise. When Wirth required that the expertise current their product amongst a spread of choices, the corporate shortly backed out.
That’s a mistake. Other than being ethically questionable, railroading a participant will assuredly result in an expertise that’s forgettable at greatest — at worst, it may very well be dangerous to the participant and your model.
However that doesn’t imply you shouldn’t give your individuals one thing to suppose about. Wirth explains that if you’d like folks to play, it’s good to give them sufficient to play with.
What’s extra, “it’s good to give them the expertise that they will play and achieve success at it.”
In different phrases, your expertise wants to supply sufficient context that your individuals know the way to play — and might even really feel accomplishment — however not a lot that they’re merely following directions.
Lesson 3: Play isn’t just for kids.
Play could be a highly effective part of a stay occasion. However “play” means various things to completely different folks.
You’ll be able to play a recreation. You’ll be able to mess around. You’ll be able to play alongside. These all have completely different shades of which means that have an effect on what your individuals are requested to do and what they get out of your occasion.
It’s essential to determine what sort of play serves the context you outlined in Lesson 1. For Wirth’s experiences, play means “make-believe for the aim of empowerment.”
Why make-believe? That’s a tough phrase to place in entrance of stakeholders.
“One, you get the chance to be extra genuine. Since you’re not having to carry the masks that’s the way you current your self to society.”
And two? Make-believe offers you “the power to have deeper empathy for people who find themselves not such as you.”
“If you play make-believe, it doesn’t must be profitable and shedding. The enjoyment is solely within the making of perception.”
And, as for what a participant walks away with, “pleasure” is a fairly good bag of merch.
