Ahead of the pandemic, the shortcomings in the marketing industry’s narrow definition of experience, and the oversaturation of advertising and content online resulted in ineffectiveness and a lack of value for consumers and communities.
The limits of the lockdown restrictions both demonstrated the universal demand for shared experiences in society and created an opportunity for people to create new ways of coming together in person, online and in culture – showing the way forward for the experience economy.
TRO wanted to explore this further, so put together a whitepaper to explore shared experiences and their relevancy in a post- pandemic economy. A YouGov Plc online survey conducted on behalf of TRO in the UK, with a nationally representative sample size of 2041 adults found that since the beginning of the national lockdown in March, 67% of UK adults who took part in an event purely through online content found the experience enjoyable, which demonstrated that online alone would not cut it.
While people are eager to share experiences in person as soon as possible, the newfound benefits of online events will have long-term impact. Those who thrive will adopt an ‘and’ rather than an ‘either/or’ mindset. With various trends emerging in the worlds of fan experiences, pop-ups, retail, product trial/sampling, B2B and the virtual space.
The whitepaper also included interviews with industry experts:
- James Kirkham, Chief Business Officer at Defected Records
- Shekhar Deshpande, Head of Strategy, Global Clients at Facebook
- David Thompson, Head of Training, IM Retail (SEUK) at Samsung
- Hannah Brown, Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer at Formula E
- Alice Ratcliffe, Head of Brand at Appear Here
- Patrick Keogh, Events and Partnerships Lead at Huckletree
All detailing the impact that the pandemic had on their industry and respective businesses, spanning music, digital, consumer technology and retail.
This whitepaper defines the concept of shared experiences and explains how they can be created to achieve mass audience engagement, community building, cultural relevance, commercial success and more, even in the face of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We identified three key core components to a successful shared experience as meaning, which leads to moment which leads to memory in a virtuous cycle. To get the most value out of this process, brands can’t afford to leave it to chance.
To find out more, the whitepaper can be downloaded from this link or contact annie.mbagwu@tro.com.
