Rachel ThomasRachel Thomas

Unfortunately, you can’t just launch a brand or product, step back and expect the world to take notice.

There are, of course, myriad PR tactics to achieve said notice, but one of them is the “event activation.” Pulling off on an interesting event with lots of consumer and media interest, with saving you a ton of work hunting down press to cover your new brand. If it’s successful, the media will come to you.

So what are the key components of a successful event activation?

Let’s use a sort of case study. CrowdOptic is an augmented reality company who, back in 2013, partnered with L’Oreal. The event they put on was a huge success for both companies; here are some key takeaways:

Don’t go it alone

A lot of brands will try to lone-wolf their start, which gives them an immediate handicap. Look for ways to associate your new brand with an older, highly trusted brand and piggyback off of their customer base and reputation.

CrowdOptic had a fascinating augmented reality product so, for the seventh annual Luminato Festival, L’Oreal used CrowdOptic’s software to treat festival goers to a unique augmented reality experience. This is the best kind of event activation relationship: L’Oreal aligned themselves with something flashy and technologically next-level, and CrowdOptic reaped the benefit of association with a major brand.

Do something impressive, or don’t do it

Your event should be something that is actually exciting, not just a glorified press conference with someone clicking through a new product presentation. Especially with no preexisting brand awareness, it’s got to be big and interesting.

CrowdOptic’s idea for the Luminato Festival was just that: a virtual art exhibit. Using the event’s special app, attendees could point their phones around in the air, revealing virtual art pieces suspended in empty space — a delightful, otherworldly experience.

Put your product in people’s hands

One of the things that made the Luminato Festival such a success for CrowdOptic was that it put the augmented reality directly in the hands of the people.

Imagine if they had just shown everyone a walkthrough? Not nearly as impressive. People needed to know what it felt like to conjure art out of thin air. Of course, the virtual art exhibit was a very small example of what CrowdOptic’s augmented technology can do, but the important thing is that all of the festival-goers got to have a personal interaction with it.

Likewise, whatever your product, your event should get people interacting with it — this will be a much more powerful and memorable experience than just having it explained to them.

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Rachel Thomas is Senior Content and Research Associate at Bospar.