Last month,?we trekked out to?SXSW, exploring activations and connecting with inspiring brands and teams in person. Our founder?James Chester was also a featured panelist at the Fast Company Grill, discussing Gumband’s innovative approach to revamping experiences, providing brands with a results-proven approach to ROI of CX and experiential investments. Here are some highlights from this discussion and other panels:
- Disrupting experiential: Over the years, we’ve seen that brands were — and still are— leaving value on the table when 1) they don’t have unified control over all software and hardware components powering their physical experiences and 2) they’re unable to quantify real-time impressions, engagement and trackability of users, both directly in the space and its surrounding area. To solve this problem, we launched Gumband, a cloud-based platform that lets brands manage the guest experience in a space and quantify their investment. Using Gumband to power a space ensures that brands can continue generating core memories for customers and fans.?
- The future of retail: Brands are looking for ways to use physical spaces for market research and to serve as entertainment destinations in their quest to connect with more consumers in person. For e-commerce retailers especially, brick-and-mortar locations and pop-ups can expand their opportunities to acquire more customers, influence consumers, boost revenue, and collect onsite feedback to inform future strategies and product launches. Looking ahead, retail will become a more prominent component of a brand’s omnichannel strategy as they optimize in-person activations via immersive technology.
- Physical spaces are measurable channels: An ongoing challenge for brands is that they don’t have a comprehensive, measurable method to fully understand the impact of their experiential environments. Typically, they collect an assortment of metrics at various moments during the experience, but usually find themselves following up to gather additional data and feedback. As a result, they’ve mainly viewed physical experiences as a brand extension for buzz and awareness. We’ve made it our mission to make physical spaces quantifiable and as easy to control, manage and measure as a website. With built-in measurement capabilities at launch, brands can track the journeys of users and passersby from the moment they enter a space until the moment they exit. ?
By powering physical locations and experiences with immersive technology that collects data from direct engagements and passive impressions, brands can get a comprehensive ROI measurement to fully understand the impact of their activations. Ultimately, they can then optimize customer engagement and personalize interactions that convert to increased brand awareness, loyalty and revenue. Expect to see more immersive campaigns as brands explore human connections that can’t be replicated online.??
