GRP & Chamber RVA

SXSW Interactive Booth

Case Description

The Challenge:

Present a creative concept for the interactive booth to be stationed at the Spring 2018 SxSW Interactive Festival, inspiring festival-goers to visit Richmond, VA while remaining true to the GRP & Chamber RVA brand strategy.

The Situation:

How can we craft a branded experience that inspires all walks of life visiting the festival, compete with the other vendors at SXSW, and assure that we consider the Richmond now, and the Richmond that our new visitors will make it.

The Opportunity:

SxSW Interactive is known for its exciting demonstrations of new technology and creative innovation. We have an opportunity to design a 'choose your own adventure' game that takes players through an entire day on the life experience.

With the guidance of our in-app experience ready for any user on one of our tablets — begin in the early morning at your favorite coffee shop, or explore the local yoga studio by scanning the qr code at the first location. Each of the five points on the game board that are determined by times throughout the day give you the opportunity to choose what you want to explore.

The Solution:

An interactive map that utilizes new tech like VR and QR Codes, immersing players in a game that educates about some of the best places in Richmond, Virginia through a ‘choose your own adventure’ day-in-the-life customer experience. Exciting, User-Friendly, Personalized and warm-welcoming. We designed this as an opportunity to access user data through the in-app experience, determining opportunities for Richmond to boost ad spend in certain areas of its live event offerings.

We began the presentation by explaining the recent accolades of Richmond, VA, clarifying our discovery of all of the awesome activities to try! Kayaking through downtown, taking a craft beer tour, exploring the arts and culture display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts…our work was designed to share in the clients’ brand value, being beneficial to the business of member companies who understand the value of Community, Relationships and Development.

Next, players choose their character persona, pulling from a range of general ‘types’ that we pre-determined based on historical and recent data.

Each type guides a unique mixture of opportunities to visit one of the locations in each area of town.

Upon visiting, they are immersed in one of the activities either through image, AR, VR, a physical object ( lie free beer ), or even chances to win tickets to one of the upcoming events in the city!

We conducted extensive research to affirm the viability of our user experiences, defining interesting activities available to try, and assigning them color codings and experience variables.

Visitors of the SxSW Interactive Vendor space can see signage hanging high above in the warehouse

pinned on the map to guide them straight to our vendor space.

Players are greeted by a friendly Richmond ambassador, handed a token,

and guided to the first booth element, a kiosk where they can take a seat and hear more about how they can play

a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE game in RVA.

Below you will see the introduction to the app UX.

It starts off by asking a few simple questions that align them with a ‘Player Type’.

The middle element of the vendor booth is a reusable vinyl banner, designed by Chamber RVA’s original map designer.

After players are signed in to the app on one of our tablets, they’re signaled to a large color and icon coded player card, starting them off on their journey at the break of dawn.each activation along the way ends with the player swiping to the next app page which prompts them to make decisions about where they would like to go.

At the end of the game, players are casually greeted by a vendor specialist who cheers and congratulates the player, asking them how they enjoyed the experience. We take the tablet back, and show them how their day added up. Finally, we debrief them, sending a copy of their journey, and handing them some local-to-Richmond curated swag.

The team crafted this short example promotional video

to demonstrate to our client how the app might allow one to imagine flowing through their adventurous day.

MY WORK

App Idea

Journey Mapping

Executive Presentation

Creative Direction

Scriptwriting

Video Editing

THE TEAM

Stephanie Clark

Joe Castagna

Alexander M. Whiteway