Features

How to avoid vomit-inducing interactive experiences | Mumbrella360 video

Ever wondered how to execute an effective interactive experience without leaving your customers either yawning or vomiting? Experiential software company founder Jack Gillespie reveals the tricks of the trade during this session from Mumbrella360.

According to Jack Gillespie, musician, programmer and technical solutions specialist, VR is something “a bunch of you are going to be excited about, and I’m going to say is terrible”.

“In terms of interactive stuff… a whole bunch of people are going to vomit if your experience goes for more than about three minutes,” he tells the audience during the following session from June’s Mumbrella360 conference.

“The first time you do something amazing in VR, you’re like ‘Holy sh*t, that was great’,” he says. “However, most of the things you’re going to see in VR are not that. The best things I’ve seen in VR across the whole industry have been video.”

According to Gillespie, it’s important to remember that “you’re not trying to be the future forever – nobody’s the future forever – but if you can do something no one’s done before for a minute, then someone’s going to get excited about it.

“You want people to have to go there. If your content is only as interesting as stuff that I can do on my phone… you’re going to lose.”

He introduces the audience to the concept of “jankyness”, which is that “if this stuff was good, it would be mainstream, and you wouldn’t need me to tell you about it”.

“This stuff”, according to Gillespie, includes Kinect, VR, Leap Motion, AR, Arduino, live MMOs.

“Nothing I’m going to talk about is good, it’s just interesting,” he says.

On a scale of one to janky, VR scores between two to four out of five, Kinect scores a three, while Leap Motion gets a “max janky” five out of five.

One area of tech that’s not janky, according to Gillespie, is holograms. “It’s really cool, not enough people are doing interesting stuff with it, it’s surprisingly not janky, because it’s just a screen,” he says. “At the end of the day, all we’re talking about is a new type of screen, we know about screens, we’ve done screens for a long time.

“It’s very future-y, people do care. There’s some great data out there that showing that particularly if you are selling a small product, or a premium product, people will engage with it in an incredibly interesting way.”

Another experience that’s almost always a guaranteed winner is photobooths. “People love photobooths, just inherently,” he says. “We’ve built incredibly cool things, but photobooths will absolutely get you big numbers. If you want a lot of people to do a thing and then say it was great, make a photobooth.”

He concludes with a warning: “Be really cautious when you’re on the internet. Technically possible actually often means practically impossible.

“Things will be solvable for a million dollars, but do you really have a million dollars to spend on this one element of this one campaign? Probably not.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.