Adding a bit of digi to events...

Bit of a rushed one this time as I’m off to Tobago in 7 hours, but this last couple of weeks I’ve been doing a lot of stuff on combining digital media with experiential. It’s an obvious topic to cover and as offline and online worlds continue to merge it’s inevitable that the two media will align more closely but an interesting one nonetheless. Just think of the ways people were interacting with this year’s Bestival – live Tweets, Facebook groups, radio channel, Flickr updates, forums, T4 uploads on YouTube and so on.

So far, I’ve been tailoring my thinking around 3 main areas:

Sweating Content
Events create content that can be ‘sweated’ online. This content can be used during the event to either take it to a wider audience (eg allowing consumers not physically present to engage online – think live streams and updating Tweets) or extend an experience further (eg photos from the event uploaded onto a Facebook page).

It’s also worth bearing in mind that consumers will create plenty of content on their own as they capture and share their experience online. Brands should consider how to encourage, facilitate, even manage this process to help spread their message. Just think of the MJ moonwalk tribute.

Customer Journey
Digital can help an event form part of the ‘Bigger Picture’. An event on its own is only one touchpoint but digital can help provide a frame bringing it into the customer journey and maximising its effectiveness. From an invite to a customer database to a targeted banner campaign digital can help promote an event, and from a push to a website or a simple data-capture for an eCRM programme digital can help extend the experience afterwards.

Events Don’t Have To Be Online
There is an increasing trend for the whole event to take place in the digital realm. Solely online events are uncommon so far and usually exist in unbranded, at best brand facilitated, form. But these are something to look out for as brands continue to grasp the merits of social media channels. Twitter’s ‘Twestival’ and Spotify’s ‘Invisible Festival’ may be a sign of more to come.


Given the conversations about the supposed death of digital agencies I can’t help but think that soon we’ll stop talking about adding ‘digital’ to other more traditional media. I’m not sure how you reach this point but we need to as consumers are there already.

I’ll post the final piece on the topic if I remember, but let me know if you’ve got any thoughts on the topic.