Advisor behind Meow Wolf, Blue Man Group shares a leak of joy, playing and branded experiences

Pop quiz! What to do Meow Wolf, Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, Disney Imagineering and Ringling Bros. have they have in common? Everyone was looking for today’s guest as an advisor.

But today’s master is … actually not a master marketing at all. In fact, he never worked in marketing. But he literally wrote the book about an interactive performance.

And as marketing leaders pour large budgets into branded experiences, live events and interactive brand activation, you will want to hear what he has to say.

Name: Jeff Windh, co -founder of Interactive Playlab

Job: It designs, directs and advised about interactive experiences, applications for the virtual world and living immersed fiction

Considering Request: Are you see List of companies he worked with?!

Fun fact: He started his career as a clown for circus ringling bros. Barnum & Bailey

Lesson 1: Start at the end.

When designing an interactive experience, Windh recommends first thinking about what you want participants to leave. No, it’s not a shopping bag full of merch. Think more philosophically.

“What do you want people to understand after activation they didn’t understand before?”

For Meow Wolf or Cirque du Soleil, this could be the discovery of a child’s sense of miracle. To activate or marketing, it will be … actually slightly less deep.

Of course, you could target them to rest with some product information – if you want them to forget it by the time they return to your car. Really memorable experiences are aimed at a goal deeper.

Wirth says step 2 asks, “How to make it so we don’t do it say They what to understand? We create a context in which they have the opportunity discover that.”

This context is a skeleton for your event or an experience design.

But Windh emphasizes that it must only be an opportunity – try to force the participant to a particular conclusion, he is both unethical and potentially harmful to his mind. Which leads us to lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Allow your participants to think for themselves.

“Put the priority of participants’ ability to think for themselves“Wirth advises.

As a counter-appeal, he shares the story of a pharmaceutical company that approached him to create an interactive experience. When Windh demanded that the experience represent its product among a series of options, the company quickly gave up.

It’s a mistake. In addition to being ethically questionable, the railway participant will surely lead to experience that can be forgotten at best – In the worst case, this could be harmful to the participant and your brand.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give your participants something to think about. Wirth explains that if you want people to play, you have to give them enough to play.

Moreover, “you have to give them experience that they can play and be successful in it.”

In other words, your experience must provide enough context for your participants to play – and even can feel the achievement – but not so much that they simply follow the instructions.

Lesson 3: The game is not just for children.

The game can be a powerful component of live events. But “game” means different things for different people.

You can play the game. You can play around. You can play together. They all have different shades of meanings that affect what is required of your participants and what they get out of your event.

You need to decide which type of game serves the context you defined in lesson 1. For Wirth’s experience, the game means “Belief for the purpose of strengthening.”

Why believe? It is a difficult word to put in front of stakeholders.

“First, you get the opportunity to be more authentic. Because you don’t have to keep your mask so you present yourself to society.”

And two? Creation gives you “the ability to have deeper empathy for people who are not like you.”

“When you play belief, it doesn’t have to win and lose. Joy is simply in belief.”

And as for what the participant goes away, “joy” is a pretty good bag of Merch.