Dr Robert Dew, author of Lean CX, reflects on some recent interactive customer experiences - and an iconic one from his youth - that tell us why engaging your audience at a deeper level can add real value.
Having just escaped Melbourne before another lock-down, I wanted to reflect on a couple of very cool experiences we had during our stay. Both of them were remarkable because of how interactive they were. That got me back to thinking about interactivity as key design criteria for creating remarkable CX.
ACMI
We had the chance to visit ACMI in Federation Square after our Lean CX book launch and tour the museum. ACMI is all about the screen. They have built a series of interesting exhibits covering early animation, through video games, to some of the latest ideas in film making. Many of the exhibits were interactive . One of my favourites was the Cuphead zoetrope. But the organisers have taken interactivity to the next level with a small round disks called a ‘lens’. Each lens has a unique code (see below). If you tap the lens on an exhibit during your visit, you ‘capture’ the experience. Later when you use your code on the ACMI online site you get to ‘relive’ your key moment again. Building memorable moments is a key to remarkable CX. Search for videos on the ‘Red Popsicle Hot Line’ if you need more convincing. Interactivity also featured in the evening with Underground Cinema Melbourne.
Underground Cinema
Secret Squirrel Productions have made going to see a movie rerun into a whole new genre of entertainment. Clever theatre. We all dressed up as FBI agents and had to complete our ‘final training before graduation’ on movie night. There were two classes:
a behavioural science class relating to eye contact and how to spot a serial killer
a field class where we had to extract an asset as part of an FBI retrieval team under direction
There was also a secondary sub plot requiring us to analyse information to solve the clues of a puzzle. Starting the puzzle required us to identify and meet our inside contact at the event. Totally immersive stuff because of the interplay. The night finished with a screening of Silence of the Lambs. The movie took on a slightly different feel because of our recent ‘training’. Particularly the close up scenes with Hannibal Lecter.
Hot funk, cool punk even if it’s old junk…
Interactivity is not new but it is still ‘rock and roll to me’. One of the most successful movies of all time is the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It has gathered a cult following around the world and still screens in some theatres more than 40 years after its first release.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 musical comedy horror film by 20th Century Fox…The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960s…Largely critically panned on initial release, it soon became known as a midnight movie when audiences began participating with the film at the Waverly Theater in New York City in 1976. Audience members returned to the cinemas frequently and talked back to the screen and began dressing as the characters, spawning similar performance groups across the United States. At almost the same time, fans in costume at the King's Court Theater in Pittsburgh began performing alongside the film. This "shadow cast" mimed the actions on screen above and behind them, while lip-syncing their character's lines. Still in limited release forty-six years after its premiere, it is the longest-running theatrical release in film history. In many cities live amateur shadowcasts act out the film as it is being shown and heavily draw upon a tradition of audience participation. The film is most often shown close to Halloween. Today, the film has a large international cult following and has been considered by many as one of the greatest musical films of all time. It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2005. - Wikipedia
The trajectory from B grade movie on release to cult following 40 years on can only be attributed to the level up in how the Rocky Horror Picture Show was experienced by fans. The strategy remains relevant. Building interactivity into your product or service isn’t new, yet it continues to stand the test of time in engaging audiences.
Robert Dew is a Founding Partner at CapFeather Global with more than 2o years of corporate consulting and university lecturing in Innovation, Customer Strategy and Customer Experience. His PhD related to improving creativity in strong corporate governance environments. He was a visiting professor for MBAs in Utrecht for NIMBAS (now part of the TIAS School for Business and Society) for more than a decade. He prefers to think of debate as an interactive conversation.