Consultant behind Meow Wolf, Blue Man Group shares lessons on joy, playing, and branded experiences – InstantFollowerz

Pop quiz! What are you doing Meow Wolf, Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, Disney Imagination and Ringling Bros. Have in common? Everyone was today as an advisor today.

But Tooday’s Master is … It’s not really a master marketing at all. In fact, he never does a day in marketing. But he literally wrote a book Interactive performance.

And as marketing leaders raise large calculations in branded experiences, live events and interactive brand activities, you want to hear what you have to say.

Name: Jeff Wirth, co-founder Interactive game

Job: Designs, direct and advise on interactive experiences, virtual world applications and live immersed fictions

Assignment for fame: Are you see List of companies with whom worked with?!

Fun Fact: Started with a career as a clown for Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus

Lesson 1: Start at the end.

When designing your interactive experience, Wirth recommends first thinking about what you want participants to leave. No, not a bag to buy full Merch. Think philosophically.

“What do you want people to do not have lower legs after activation have not before they did not cover?“

For Mioow Wolf or Cirque du Soleil, it could be a discovery of a children’s sense of miracle. To activate the brand or marketing e, it will be … something, there isn’t really a long lesson.

Sure, you can say that you can go with some product information – if you want to be by the time they returned to them. Really unforgettable experiences aim for something deeper.

Wirth says step 2 is: “How do we do that to me seller Say what to understand? We create a context with which they have the opportunity reveal That. “

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

But Wirth emphasizes that it must only be the opportunity – trying to force the participants to a certain conflict, on his mind, and utient and potentially harmful. What leads us to lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Strengthen your participants to think for yourself.

“Put priority on participants in thinking for topics“Wirth Tip.

As an anti-example, shares the story of the pharmaceutical company that joined him to create an interactive experience. When the perilation is needed to experience its product among a series of options, the company quickly supported.

That’s a mistake. In addition to being ethically questionable, the railway participating in the participant will see for the experience it is forgettable At best – In the worst case it could be harmful to participants and your brand.

But that doesn’t mean you show your participants to think something About. Wirth explains that if you want people to play, you have to give enough to play with.

Moreover, “You have to give to tell the experience I can play and be successful in that.”

In other words, your experiences need to provide enough context that your participants know how to play – and can have a sense of achievement – but not so many instructions.

Lesson 3: The game is not just for children.

The game can be a powerful component of a living event. But “play” means different things for different people.

You can play the game. You can play around. You can play together. All these have different shades of meaning that affect what your participants brought to do and what they are not from your event.

You need to decide what type of reproduction, the context you define in the lesson 1. For Wirth’s experiences, reproduction means “make-white for empowerment purposes.”

Why make your belly? It is hard work on putting in front of the stakeholder.

“One, you get a chance to be more authentic. Because you don’t have to keep a mask so you introduce yourself to society.”

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

“When you play make-a-tuby, it doesn’t have to win and ling. The joy is simply in making beliefs.”

And, as far as the participant leaves, “Joy” is a pretty good bag of Merch.