Gesture Control in Experiential Marketing
What is experiential marketing?
Before we jump into the heavy lifting, we certainly need to understand what experiential marketing is. It is defined as a marketing or advertising strategy where audiences get to experience a brand. This would stand at a stark contrast against our regular marketing efforts which are mostly broadcast to a wide network of audiences with little information on how the audience is receiving it.
This strategy has proven to be widely appreciated & is increasingly becoming the choice of advertising for several companies. The way they carry out this “experiential marketing” could be anything from Mixed Reality experiences or full-blown experiences that dish out something entertainment & information in a way that gets people to talk about it on Instagram for countless weeks.
But what we’re focusing on is the role that gesture control can play in this field. At Vicara, we’ve seen customers who work in the field, come to us with various ideas & integrations in mind. The inflow of these ideas has prompted us to talk about gestures in this space.
Let’s take a look at some applications
Gaming
Well, this one was pretty obvious. There’s no better way to get people to check out a new game other than going to an event & getting people to play it. There is honestly nothing like first-hand experience when it comes to gaming.
Now there may be tons of people out & about demonstrating their games. What could give you the edge? That’s right! Gestures.
You could turn any game into a gesture-controlled game with the Kai & give your audience something to remember. With the Kai, you won’t even have to work too hard to integrate it with your games. And Voila, every game just got a whole lot more interesting.
Art
You’ve seen several interactive art displays over the years, you’ve quite possibly tried out a few too. But you could ramp things up with a gesture controller.
Imagine letting passers-by paint & draw on large digital displays by simply waving their arms around in the air.
Talk about an Instagram worthy experience!
The Automobile Industry
The automobile industry has seen tons of innovation on the experiential marketing front.
From interactive informative displays that talk about parts & services to 3D holographic displays to blow the audience away.
These technologies have been put to use in a minimal scope & the maximum interaction that the audience would have with such displays would be through touch. While touch is a great option, it brings about the issue of visibility when people stand in front of the displays to use it, blocking it out for the rest of the crowd.
Using the Kai, you could stand just about anywhere in the room & Interact with the displays. What’s more, in the case of 3D assets, you could manipulate them with your hands as if they were real. This without having to lug out heavy parts and machinery.
Education
Here’s an industry that can benefit most out of interactive displays. When the goal is to educate, the best way is to involve the audience.
Large displays can be set up & educational games can be a great starting point, but what do you have that a child is going to find exciting?
You could strap a Kai onto the hands of the kids and let them play around with the gestures. Wave, swipe & much more in the air, without ever having to touch the screen. This could also be useful in rotating & observing 3-Dimensional objects like a 3D heart or a 3D architectural model.
Virtual Reality
I believe this section requires a blog of its own but for now, we’re going to keep it short.
Let’s start with VR gaming. Here the goal is to create an immersive gaming environment. And when you want something to be truly immersive, the user must also be able to interact with the virtual environment like they would in an actual place. The best way to do this is by recreating the user’s hand in the virtual world & allowing them to use their VR hands to carry out actions. This is something that we’ve managed to do with the Kai.
And these interactions aren’t just limited to VR Gaming. You could carry out employee training on VR environments and let them use their hands to perform tasks as they would otherwise. You could train employees faster & with lesser dependency on actual machinery & therefore lesser risks.
There is also the scope of tours in Virtual reality, where people can visit any place of value in their virtual environment & experience it. Imagine going to the Lurve without the rush of people. We’ll still make sure you know that you can’t touch the Monalisa through our haptic feedback!
We’ve barely scratched the surface on what we can do with Kai within the realm of experiential marketing. We are working closely with several clients to tailor experiences that they believe their audiences would enjoy. The possibilities are virtually endless.
If you have some ideas that you’d like to try out, reach out to us on our website. We’d be happy to create new & interesting integrations with you.
