We marketers talk a lot about the importance of engagement. And it seems like a fairly simple notion that if you give your customers a chance to physically or virtually interact with your product/service in a truly engaging manner, then they will buy your product/service and sing your praises. But talk, as they say, is cheap. Truly engaging experiences are few and far between. That’s why I have no reservations whatsoever telling you about a thoroughly engaging interactive (online & offline) experience that Renegade created for Panasonic.
As a founding sponsor of the AST Dew Tour, Panasonic enjoys a prominent position (the first event in Baltimore is called the Panasonic Open) at this five market action sports competition. With this level of visibility, it would be easy to simply show up, give away free stuff to draw a crowd and call it a success. But Panasonic expected a lot more from us. They wanted kids and their parents to see first-hand why Panasonic plasma TVs set the standard for viewing action sports and movies in hi-def. They wanted fans to “test drive” their latest and greatest digital still cameras and HD camcorders. They wanted to create a buzz about a new line of “old school” headphones. And they wanted to drive action sports fans to their retailers (both offline and online). With a wish list this big, we needed an insight, an idea and a personality that could help Panasonic rise above the marketing crowd.
The insight came from the skateboarders themselves. They told us the role CE gear plays in their lives, how they use cameras to capture their tricks and how they share images and videos with their friends. The idea “share the air” grew out of this insight and became the platform for a fully integrated experiential program. We worked with the Girl Skateboarding team (including Brandon Beibel, Ty Evans, Aaron Meza) to create entertaining videos that demonstrated their vision of “share the air” which became part of a pool of TV spots that ran during the Dew Tour broadcasts. The event experience included an interactive instant win game during which everyone wins something, an eye-popping 103″plasma TV viewing room and a camera loaner program. The camera loaner program offered consumers a chance to ‘test drive” Panasonic’s latest digital still and HD video cameras while encouraging folks to capture their own “air” and submit photos at a corresponding online contest.
The personality that pushed this program over the top was Ryan Sheckler, who helped focus attention on Panasonic’s new “old school” headphones. Ryan made three appearances for Panasonic each event weekend, twice at the tour itself and once at a dealer and also appeared in a TV spot that captured his vision of “share the air” on a trip he made to Dubai and Sydney. Already the best pro park skateboarder in the world, Ryan’s fame grew over the summer as his MTV reality show “The Life of Ryan” became a hit. At each successive tour the buzz grew louder and the lines to meet him grew longer. Several fans chronicled the experience of meeting Ryan on their websites and in homemade videos. NBC captured the fan frenzy at the Panasonic booth when Ryan showed up in Baltimore. MTV did the same, following Ryan and his growing entourage in Cleveland.
I witnessed the scene first-hand in both Baltimore and Orlando. Even before his reality show aired, Ryan was a teen heartthrob. “You don’t know this yet, but I’m going to marry you” said one fan as she approached Ryan for his autograph in Baltimore. Another simply started to cry and shake as she approached him. Ryan smiled and posed for a photo while his agent moved things along.
In Orlando, many of the girls had created customized clothing just for this occasion. A couple of teenage girls had sewn together matching tributes which said “I Heart” on one shirt and “Ryan” on the other. Ryan’s appeal goes beyond teen girls. “Skater boys” of all ages and skill levels asked Ryan to sign their boards as if this would actually improve their skating. Many simply said “dude, you’re the best.” Parents and even some grandparents joined in the fun, posing with Ryan and buying “his” headphones for their kids. I overheard one parent saying to her daughter “yes I know that is Ryan’s brother, Kane, I watched the show with you.”
The Ryan lovefest extended online to Share the Air.net/ryan which attracted over a 1/2 million visitors this summer. Some came to enter the Share the Air photo contest, some came to “get inside Ryan’s head” virtually, and others hoped to share some real air with Ryan via a sweepstakes. The winner of the sweepstakes got to hang with Ryan–his name was Brandon Cantelli and he was one happy kid and the envy of many others.
From a Marketing for Good perspective, “engage” means giving “your customers a chance to physically or virtually interact with your product or service in a meaningful and beneficial fashion.” Panasonic physically engaged customers by the thousands at the events and their dealers. Thousands tried their cameras, listened to their headphones and witnessed the world’s largest plasma. Thousands more engaged virtually at ShareTheAir.net. By the end of the summer, hundreds had bought the headphones Ryan wore in his “share the air” video and got him to sign them (making these the most special headphones in the action sports world!).
Panasonic offered action sports fans intimate access to one of their heroes, and in exchange was able to tell its product stories to truly open ears. In pre-post testing, the Share the Air experience resulted in dramatic increases in Panasonic’s Net Promoter Score providing further evidence that this was a Good experience all the way around.