I came across an article that kinda of proved what I was fearing since I went to the My Games On event in Portugal - big shows for the brands to show off their new merchandise are becoming BORING! What was once a big crowd gatherer and a fabulous showcase opportunity for big brands to show what they’ve been up to for the consumers, they are now becoming boring expos that just remind us on how badly we can waste our time while actually anticipating for a good time.
Well, my grumpiness comes from the My Games On event in Portugal last September. Since it was the first gaming event occurring in Portugal with some visibility , my eyes shined as I pictured a E3 in my own country. Well, it is every gamers dream to have acess to such a convention. What I came across was offensive, to say the least. Half a dozen of stands that didn’t relate to games that much, that just had the key sponsors doing kiddy activities for the visitors (”Why don’t you come here and scream a cheer on the PS3 Microphone? It’s fun!”) and a few conferences that, while could be interesting in theory, were something to be remembered… in a bad way. If you want to have an idea, basically they put a woman saying that, in Gears of War 2, “there are more monsters and they are scarier”.
The sum-up of my ranting article is this - the crowd affluence to big shows are diminishing because of two reasons:
- The interest of the expos themselves are becoming scarce or just plain boring. It’s just more of the same. Not only this, but big brands are starting to remove investment from the big shows, thus it only tends to become poorer and poorer;
- If one member of the crowd posts in Youtube what he saw in the expo, then 5000000 other potential visitors will just watch it online - there is no real added value in actually going to the expo.
My conclusion is simple - ADDED VALUE! We can’t say this enough. It’s not just being there, it’s not just having a big billboard with your brand written all over it, or having a PoS material with really hot promoters - it’s giving something back that you cannot enjoy via Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. Example - imagine having access to specific contents if you go to the Event and take a picture of a QR code available there. An extra character for a videogame, for example. Create logical links that make crowds feel they are having THE experience. And above all - please treat them with some respect - expect all kinds of crowds to access your site/event/brand. So treat them with the level of knowledge you expect them to have and provide multi-level experiences according to your core target while not neglecting the secondary targets. I’m not saying to please everybody - just don’t annoy somebody…