Posted in Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Gamification, Interactive Brand Experiences, kiosks, Lead Generation, mobile marketing tours, Multi-Touch, ROI, Strategy, Tradeshow Technology, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Educating Audiences with Infotainment

February 17, 2016 at 09:56

by Chris Rogne

The main goal of many of our clients is education. They want the audience to learn something—this is particularly true for our tradeshow clients but many others as well. Infotainment works well to achieve those goals. What is infotainment? Info from information combined with tainment from entertainment. In essence, it’s a great way to teach information in a unique way.

The most effective way to teach something to someone is to make it fun. Many companies realize this too, which is why gamification is gaining popularity in the work place too, for on-boarding new employees and for ongoing training programs. While we enjoy adding gamification to infotainment experiences, and we do it often, it’s not the right solution for everyone. Some brands like to keep it interesting and interactive but simply want the information to be accessible and engaging. (We do that too!)

By making it interactive, the participant becomes more engaged in the experience. People fall into different types of learners: visual, auditory, reading & writing and kinesthetic (hands-on). Our infotainment solutions can be created to reach all of these different styles and all of the ones we develop will benefit both the visual and the kinesthetic learners. For those that are reading & writing learners, our trivia app adds the question and answer element that those learners crave.

We developed a cool interactive catalog experience to teach attendees about Oil and Gas. Check out our project video.

Learn more about our infotainment and gamification solutions.

We would love to develop a solution that meets your needs. Contact us today.

Elation Digital develops a wide variety of experiential interactive brand experiences and event technologies to draw crowds for tradeshows, events and mobile marketing tours including photo & video activations, custom branded games, social media, data capture, tracking and reporting. Their solutions are perfect for all budget levels from simple solutions to complete integrated campaigns.

Posted in Advergames, Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Gamification, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, mobile marketing tours, Strategy, Technology, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

What’s Hot in Experiential for 2016?

January 18, 2016 at 13:02

by Chris Rogne

About a year ago, I wrote about the Tech Trends for 2015 and which ones matter. I took the angle of discussing that choosing the right technology to fit campaign goals is more important than choosing solutions simply for the sake of having a trendy gadget. Of course that still holds true but technology has made great strides in the past year. And, for the most part, companies are using them wisely.

What you should to expect to see more of this year:

Virtual Reality—VR is still hot and is being predicted by many to be an even greater attraction this year. It’s use has been growing since last year. The number wearable devices have increased and can be found in prices that range from under $3 (Google Cardboard) to over $600 (Oculus Rift). There’s something for everyone’s budget. You’ll also see more immersive VR experiences that will include the senses—smell, sound and motion. Check out this experience for Boursin made in the UK.

Wearable Technology—This is not going away any time soon and the technology keeps getting better and the number of ways to incorporate these into experiences is improving. We are still seeing RFID for movement tracking, registration and data capture as a popular choice. Smart phones, watches and bracelets, and others, will be incorporated into experiences making more a personalized connection.

Beacons—I touched on this last year. It was starting to take off and made real progress in 2015. Forbes sites beacons will drive $44 billion in sales in 2016. Why wait for people to stop by your booth or attraction? By sending push messages, you can attract people to you or keep them informed about promotions, product information or meet me at cocktail hour to chat.

Vertical Video—Meercat and Snapchat were first. Vertical videos (ads) make sense for mobile devices, not so much for your office environment. Vertical LED’s look cool at events. It will be interesting to see how this is used this year.

What you should keep an eye on:

CES had so many great technologies available for preview. Many of them won’t be ready for incorporation into many events this year but hold promise for late 2016 and 2017.
Samsung Rink VR Controller—A series of palm controllers that give you the ability to use your hands and fingers within the virtual world. This should be big with gamification. Having the ability to interact with your hands and more intricately your fingers will open up many possibilities. I know our team of developers will have fun experimenting with this once it’s available.

8i Volumetric VR People—3D Hologram people at your event? How is this different than other hologram solutions? They are using 2 or more video cameras to build the figures rather than depth sensors.

HTC Vive “Chaperone” Mode–Tired of bumping into the coffee table while you are wearing your VR headset? Your actual living environments can be over laid into the experience so you can move around fearlessly.

With so many interesting items available, 2016 will be an exciting year for experiential technology. 2015 was amazing too. It just keeps getting better and better. Yes, I love my job—and I’m just a small part of it.

Learn How Elation Digital Can Create Experiential Solutions for You!

Elation Digital develops a wide variety of interactive experiential brand solutions to attract crowds for events, tradeshows and mobile marketing tours. Their cutting-edge technology includes photo & video activations, custom gamification, social media engagement, data capture, tracking and reporting. These solutions are perfect for all budget levels from simple solutions to complete integrated campaigns.

Posted in Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Experiential, Gamification, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

2015 – A Year of Experiential

December 17, 2015 at 12:42

by Chris Rogne

2015 is almost over. Looking back over the year, we accomplished some pretty amazing experiential solutions for our clients. I can say that because as Director of Marketing, it’s my job to get the word out there and showcase our work. I’m objective because I didn’t create them. But in all honesty, our development and creative teams continue to come up with some truly wonderfully unique and compelling ideas, our sales team sells them to awesome clients and voila, here are a few of this year’s highlights: (be sure to click on the images to see videos or effects)

Our Kinect & Motion gamification solutions are designed to get the participants involved in playing and enjoying themselves. People love to compete and this furthers the engagement. It’s contagious! People gather to watch and they want to join in the excitement.

AT&T Fiesta Futbol

Health Ministry of Argentina

Patagonia

The touch games we develop create an emotional connection to the brand. By interacting with elements that have been incorporated, the information gets reinforced through play.

SheaMoisture

Honda-2015 International Car Show

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Our infotainment solutions combine the interactive nature of our games with the opportunity to include important product or company information into the experience. Learning is easier when the participant is having a good time and the information is remembered more easily.

Patagonia

Incaa – Technopolis

Madam Walker (SheaMoisture)

Our photo and video activations are still popular and extend the brand. People still love taking photos and videos–and love sharing them. Ours are fun and designed to get the people to interact.

Pepsi Slow Motion

Incaa Green Screen

Garnier Animated Gif

Share a Coke

We integrate our data capture technology into our various experiential solutions. The interactive engaging features of our activations draw the crowds which presents the perfect opportunity to collect participant information.

Capgemini

Garnier

Everything is still all about Social Sharing. Brands and agencies feel the pressure of having a social presence. We agree! Just like our data capture, all of our experiences can have the social element integrated into the solution for easy sharing.

Garnier Social wall

Essie Instagram Wall

We had many campaigns where the physical and digital world intersected which created true experiential success. These two combined enhanced the experience and immersed the participant into the action.

How did experiential work for you in 2015? We’d love to help you make great strides in 2016– it’s going to be an awesome year!

Learn more about our solutions today!

Elation Digital develops a wide variety of interactive brand experiences and event technologies to draw crowds for tradeshows, events and mobile marketing tours including photo & video activations, custom branded games, infotainment, social media, data capture, tracking and reporting. Their solutions are perfect for all budget levels from simple solutions to complete integrated campaigns.

Posted in Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, Tradeshow Technology, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Controlling Long Lines at Events

October 15, 2015 at 11:00

by Chris Rogne

Do people wait in line to see your booth attraction? Does it get chaotic and difficult for your brand ambassadors to keep track of who’s next?

There is a solution.

Queue Management—We’ve developed a proprietary app that takes the guesswork out of managing long lines at events and also, additionally, aids in the registration and lead generation process.

The most popular choice is QR codes. Participants enter their information on a branded information screen. Once the data is captured, the QR code is scanned and recorded onto the card.

The participant checks-in for the attraction they are interested in and the brand manager scans the card into the queue system and that person is assigned a place in the order. Easy!

We like to use big screens so the participant can see their place from a distance. We also offer text and email notification. No need to stand around and wait. This increases their enjoyment factor because they can keep track of their place and allows the user to look around your booth! They are not tied down. It increases brand engagement and offers a much better user experience!

We also have to ability to integrate your brand’s videos and images onto the screens. This creates visual interest and engages the audience. Our Queue management system integrates with all of Elation’s other solutions including games, infotainment experiences, contests and more and can track activity of your attendees.

Aside from QR codes, we offer RFID, scanners and other options, as well.

Let us help you control your queue!

Posted in Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, ROI, Strategy, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Measuring the ROI of Adding Branded Interactive Engagements to your Event

October 5, 2015 at 13:27

by Chris Rogne

The one tried and true way of measuring overall ROI is to take the revenue generated, subtract the costs and divide by those costs to get the percentage. Seems simple enough. To measure the ROI of adding an experiential element to your booth is a bit more tricky and yet can still be determined.

First, as I always mention, start with your goals. What are you hoping to gain by adding an interactive technology? These goals will help to figure out what to compare against at the end of the show.

Positive Brand Engagement—adding an experiential solution increases the connection to your brand. Playing a game, taking a photo, learning about your products through interactive screens, make a lasting impression by reaching them at an emotional level. If someone took the time to interact with your brand and not simply chat with your booth personnel, that person has a higher chance of being a quality lead for you.

Quality of leads—this is not strictly a numbers game. You could get boatloads of names from an event. Even your amazing sales pipeline strategy may not be able to help you if the leads you gather aren’t your target audience. Several high quality leads will be far more beneficial down the road for you than 100 names that do nothing (except skew your analytics when you reach out to them).

Partnership opportunities—it’s not always about finding customers. You chose your specific event for a reason. There will be other companies that are synergistic to yours. You may find there is a company that is similar but not directly competitive to you. Together you can take advantage of each other’s strengths and offer each other something you don’t have. Many times that is much cheaper than developing it for yourself.

Longevity of relationships—also knows as the Lifetime Value of a Customer. Perhaps one deal generates a $10,000 deal but that doesn’t quite cover your show investment (Booth costs alone can be that high). If you deliver for that customer and they keep coming back, you are covering your acquisition cost and then some for years to come.

Brand extension—we are constantly talking and writing about how a brand’s perception can last long after the event. Having something beside a #hashtag that can be shared socially is key can reach a multiple factor of the number of people that came by your booth.

The majority of our clients work with us annually or multiple times throughout the year. We are happy when they come back. It’s a testament to the fact our solutions work and met the goals and solutions they were aiming to achieve.

Learn how Elation Digital Can Help you Reach your ROI goals!

Elation Digital develops a wide variety of interactive brand experiences and event experiential technologies to draw crowds for tradeshows, events and mobile marketing tours including photo & video activations, custom branded games, infotainment, social media, data capture, tracking and reporting. Their solutions are perfect for all budget levels from simple solutions to complete integrated campaigns.

Posted in Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, kiosks, Lead Generation, mobile marketing tours, Technology, Tradeshow Technology Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Which Experiential Technology is Right for You?

September 23, 2015 at 12:02

by Chris Rogne

There are many options when looking to add an interactive experiential technology to your event. Where should you start? How do you choose? Start with your objectives. Ask yourself, “What am trying to accomplish? What are my campaign goals?”

Looking for leads? Sure, that’s top of everyone’s list. How can you accomplish this? Add a technology that people love to do such as a photo or video activation. Choose from animated gifs, slow motion video or simple branded photo solutions. People love getting their picture taken and this is a proven lead generation solution.

Teach something? Have a new product, new enhancements or simply want people to learn about your company? Infotainment solutions might be for you. We offer trivia, surveys, interactive product screens and puzzles to name a few. We can create something exciting that will teach the information you want your audience to learn.

Get people engaged? You want people excited at your event. Custom games generate engagement and create an emotional connection to your brand. People love to compete which elevates the fun and makes it more memorable.

Brand recognition? You want people to know your brand and remember it. Sharing on social media gets your brand attention well beyond the event. All of our solutions are social media ready. Just ask. Many people choose to offer prizes branded with their company logo to help extend the brand after the event. Our spin wheel solution with built-in inventory management helps manage the give-away process.

Another key to experiential success is seamless integration. Our gamification, photo & video, data capture, infotainment, prize management and more are all integrated for our clients. This makes it easier for them to manage only one experiential company and the overall customer experience is much improved. The participant can move from one activation to another with zero effort. Reporting is integrated as well, which makes developing an ROI for your event, even easier.

Elation Digital develops high impact, crowd generating interactive brand experiences and event technologies to draw crowds for tradeshows, events and mobile marketing tours. These solutions include: photo & video activations, custom branded games, infotainment, data capture, tracking and reporting that can easily be shared socially for maximum impact of your brand. Their solutions are perfect for all budget levels from simple activations to complete integrated campaigns.

Posted in Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Great Example of Experiential Marketing

August 12, 2015 at 13:52

by Chris Rogne

One of the key areas of my job is to create or find and share good content. I search for topics that relate to our business and keep an eye out for great examples of experiential marketing as well as what the competition may be up to.

I came across this video of an interactive experiential marketing campaign and loved, loved—simply loved it.

It’s a tad long, but it’s worth it. Please take a look.

It has all the elements of what makes experiential marketing great:

Engagement

Interactive

Personal

Humor

Emotion

A compelling offer

Memorable

Sharable

BRANDED

This particular campaign has integrated technology as well. It’s not a requirement for experiential marketing but since that’s what we do, it was even more compelling to me. After watching this, what I know is, I want to go there! (That’s effective marketing)

Learn how Elation Digital can create great experiential solutions for your brand!

Posted in Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, mobile marketing tours, Multi-Touch, Video Activation Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

Interactive Video Experience Generates Excitement for Monterey Bay Aquarium

July 10, 2015 at 10:52

by Chris Rogne

Elation Digital recently completed an exciting customized video activation for a mobile marketing tour for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The crowds at the Summerthings Event in Golden Gate Park enjoyed this unique “First in Kind” multitouch sensory interactive experience giving participants the opportunity to interact with thousands of sardines in a Baitball simulation.

Visitors to this special activation had to opportunity to create a video with the ability to select a shape and choose music to make theirs unique. They could choose a shape of heart, star, fish or funnel and their music choices included Hip Hop, Rock, Classical or Country.

We used our data capture software to create a personalized experience for the visitor by adding their name at the beginning of their video. Once the video was created, users had the option share via social media and to post their individual creation to YouTube to share with friends.

Elation Digital worked closely with experiential agency Digital Media Etc to bring this activation to life for one of the world’s best known aquariums.

Learn how Elation Digital can create custom experiences for your next event!

Posted in Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink. What do you think?

3 More Ways Data Capture Solutions Help Achieve Event Marketing Success

June 30, 2015 at 12:17

by Chris Rogne

Awhile back I wrote a blog on capturing attendee information and how data capture helps lead to event success. Here are three more ways to successfully maximize data intelligence:

Prize management—Giving away prizes can be a very successful way to entice attendees to share their information with you. By scanning badges or capturing their information before entering to win something, you can follow up with them after the event. If you choose to have them be required to check back in to see if they’ve won something, you have another opportunity to grab their attention to teach them about your company and products.

Qualifying leads—Once the attendee has given you their information, you need to find out if they are a true lead. Adding a short survey after the initial data capture can help qualify each visitor. This will help you target your messaging when you create your follow-up campaigns. By knowing where they are in your pipeline, you will know whether you need to nurture that lead or attempt to convert them.

Personalization— It’s critical for your booth ambassadors to connect and engage with attendees. To meet them at a more personal level you need to find out what their preferences and needs are. By doing so, you can tailor the information you provide to create an experience that will be relevant to them which will develop a deeper relationship.

Marketers typically have two goals at events and tradeshows: lead generation and product education. Utilizing the data capture process to create the best lead follow-up campaigns, allows for you to capitalize your show success and event ROI.

Learn how Elation Digital can help you achieve data capture success!

Posted in Advergames, Custom Branded Games, Data Capture, Events, Experiential, Interactive Brand Experiences, Lead Generation, mobile marketing tours, Multi-Touch, Strategy, Technology, Tradeshow Technology, Uncategorized Bookmark the permalink.

Why Experiential Marketing Works

April 30, 2015 at 12:44

by Chris Rogne

Experiential Marketing is on the rise and we’ve been busy, so it must be true. Marketers are dedicating larger budgets toward incorporating these initiatives into their marketing mix. According to Event Marketer’s Event Track 2014, it’s an increase of 5% and is expected to be higher throughout 2015. It also says that marketers saw an ROI of 5 to 1–that’s 7% higher than the previous year.

But what is it about experiential marketing that makes it so successful? According to Quartz, it’s “an alternative to hard-hitting selling tactics, experiential marketing is fuzzy and abstract—prioritizing delight, touch, wonder, play, and encounter.” This is a great description and these attributes touch upon emotions and emotions are what drive sales!

Experiential marketing can be incorporated into the marketing mix in many ways and with that comes flexibility to develop a successful program. With so many choices, marketers select the solution(s) that best fits their brand and (prospective) customer. As new technologies continue to emerge, the number of options grows: gamification, RFID, custom apps, beacons, wearable technology, infotainment, interactive and immersion experiences—the list goes on.

Marketers are learning that active participation between the customer and these programs is increasing. It’s driving engagement and it’s deepening the emotional connection to the brand through these new and innovative experiential solutions.

Want more information on adding experiential solutions to your next marketing event? Learn more!