A SPIN On Videos

With Coachella kicking off this weekend, social media is flaunting the outfits, the artists, and many celebrities partaking in this infamous event. If you’ve ever been to a festival, you can attest to the completely immersive nature of the experience. The overwhelming sound of the roaring crowd, the taste of the sweat that’s dripped down your face, the smell of body odor and greasy food a few steps away, the eye-catching set that’s barely seen through the sea of fans, and feel of the bass skipping your heart beats.

But what about the majority of us who can’t attend and who can’t drop everything in our lives to attend every festival? But what about all the “ugh, I wish I could be there” fans?

Video is a vehicle that allows anyone to feel more like a participant to an experience. YouTube’s latest 360-degree live streaming and spatial audio features are getting us steps closer to feeling as if you’re actually there. Being able to navigate, turn, and view the surrounding space, viewers can feel transported to the location of the video.  Additionally by having sound change while changing directions, videos can more accurately mimic real situations. We will be able take in the voice and view of the performer then turn around and hear the cheers of the engulfing audience. That’s really quite remarkable. 

The technologies of these components are ages beyond the current clickable annotations that simply link you to other videos. While YouTube has promoted 360-degree videos for over a year, the live aspect completely changes the experience for creators and viewers of the site. Live streaming only heightens the real time and realistic quality of the experience. The first live stream kick-off will be on Wednesday at 8pm, and Coachella will also feature some performances this weekend. A preview of spatial audio can also be seen below.

So what does this mean for marketers? How can we learn to utilize this interactive element? Maybe this means no longer having a visible production set for our videos. Or maybe it means composing a more interesting and larger space for viewers to explore. Regardless of our strategies in approaching this new platform feature, this 360-degree storytelling definitely means that we now have more elements to be aware of and control. This might be a major challenge to some, but it really gives us the opportunity to be creative. Some brands, like the one seen below, have already started to play with this new feature and have been successful. The development of platforms really challenges marketers. They test our ability to implement branding strategies without being disruptive and create experiences that consumers actually want to engage with. YouTube has given us a way to engage with people’s senses, but it will be very interesting to see how and if brands continue to develop content with this new element and ultimately new power.

A Five Starry Approach

Lay back on this starry night. Let the room absorb your senses. The smell of the irises and the fifteen sunflowers in the vase next to you. The eyes of the portraits judging you and questioning the presence of someone other than their creator inhabiting his bed.  The bedroom. 

The Art Institute of Chicago created an immersive experience, called "Let Yourself In", where visitors have the opportunity to stay a night in an infamous Vincent Van Gogh painting. Blending Van Gogh’s three different versions of the Bedroom, the most popular part of the exhibit transforms the painting into a 3 dimensional space. The room isn’t interpreted into reality, but rather, the structure still exists as the artist painted it. The furniture and walls were constructed with materials that mimic Van Gogh’s heavy brush strokes, and the lines, colors, and shadings are painted to a tee. Ad Age describes the team’s tasks as making the room “as faithful to the painting as possible, yet livable”.

painting (left) vs. exhibit (right)

Beyond the experience itself, the Art Institute of Chicago also concocted a creative marketing strategy to promote the exhibition’s opening. Partnering with Airbnb, the room is posted as a real listing consisting of Van Gogh’s personal room descriptions, desired $10 charge per night, and reviews from previous guests. Booking the first few weeks within minutes of release, the approach accomplished its goal of creating buzz.

Another approach to stir engagement involved creative pre-event promotion. Posters replicated a torn newspaper classified ad that advertised the available room and a number to text for more information. By texting, interested visitors were able to receive messages from Van Gogh himself about the listing. The social media staffers sent texts such as,  “The apartment is not yet ready. Vacancies open 2/14. Text me back. We can talk existentialism and paint fumes”.  By attracting its audience way before the event itself, the exhibit was already creating excitement in a fun way that communicated directly with the public. This tactic achieved its goals without being disruptive or pushing self-motivated sale objectives. 

Aimed at drawing in attention over profits, the exhibit generated more than 500 million media impressions and nearly $6 million in earned media. The museum also received its largest opening weekend and gained over 2,500 new followers in the first two days. 

The promotional strategy was a large success that illustrates the benefits of a creative and interactive advertising approach. The Art Institute of Chicago effectively positioned the campaign into platforms that were appropriate to the exhibit and the brand without having to cram content on more popular, exhausted social platforms. By partnering with Airbnb, the exhibit was able to reach a larger audience and give visitors a more unique experience than a typical museum admission. While applied to an art exhibit, this same creative approach to reach an audience seems to be a requirement in recent advertising. Consumers are evolving and want something more than to be yelled at with promotional material and ads. 

InterNOT of Things

A fridge embellished with real time news and weather? A home feature that scans your body and adjusts the surrounding air temperature accordingly? Both are typical examples in explaining the internet of things.

Is this the way of the future? Well...maybe not.

Maybe these existing and soon to be “Smart” products are not so smart after all. 

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, a renowned interaction designer, product designer, and entrpeneur, believes that advancing the internet of things in this direction may be pointless. These designers are essentially creating products for a market that is both not there and not home.

Recently speaking at the international interaction design conference, Interaction 16, Deschamps-Sonsino believes that today’s generation is creating a greater and greater distanced relationship with their homes. People aren’t necessarily living in their living spaces anymore as they adopt an on-the-go lifestyle. More people travel, own other homes, and have placed greater priorities in work life. Additionally, she acknowledges a world becoming less and less material with a greater willingness to invest else where, such as digital. As furniture sales drop, the sales of the newest devices are always increasing. With both of those concepts in mind, it becomes easier to see a decreasing need in the home as it is becoming a secondary concern.Gone are the days where our lives revolve so much around the kitchen that we need to invest in a refrigerator that informs us of the outside world.

So if not the home, where do we go? What is the future of the internet of things?

Creators of internet of things products need to shift away from those “little things in life” kitchy products to products that actually benefit and advance societies. We need to look at the bigger picture. Products need to take us into a positive and flourishing digital age. Products need to evolve from luxury to necessity.

Gamaya is an Ag Tech company that’s addressing the global issue of feeding a growing population. Through technological and analytical advancements, both farmers and consumers can better understand the development of their land and plants. Aerial drone cameras survey land and transmit the data back to farmers with information ranging from crop and soil characteristics to location of weed presence. Farmers can then not only better locate problems and opportunities within their land, but they can then allocate resources for higher crop yield and increase profits. From a consumer standpoint, access to this kind of information allows us to better understand where are resources are coming from and whether high quality processes were involved. 

Its products like this that are positioning our advancing technology in the useful and impact direction.  With the integration of technology and design, more meaningful products can not only benefit the market of the internet of things but also have the power to change the evolving definition completely. 

See Alexandra's full presentation from Interaction 16 here.