Attractions by UNIT9 uses the tools of immersion to make lasting connections with guests
by Gene Jeffers
Brands, attractions, theme parks, museums, visitor centers – all clamor for attention, attendance and allegiance. How can brands and venues cut through the chatter and effectively relay their stories? Garry Williams, Business Director at Attractions by UNIT9, explains that it’s all about using every opportunity and available tool to make connections.
Building blocks
“To compete and stay competitive within this chaotic environment, you have to build lasting relationships with your guests,” says Williams. “The best way to do this is by using leading-edge technologies as building blocks to create narrative- based experiential journeys that recruit and retain a community of loyal followers and fans.”
Combining strategy, storytelling, high innovation and premier craftsmanship with limitless creative thinking, the Attractions by UNIT9 team helps brands and institutions reimagine what is possible when inviting existing and new audiences to take that journey. It can be virtual, physical, or – often most effective of all – a hybrid journey, propelling guests from pre-visit, off-site engagement and recruitment through to an immersive physical location and then beyond to a personalized post-visit experience. The secret lies in the effective partnering of content with technology, individual with community, initial engagement with follow-up.
The building blocks Williams refers to are based on a spectrum of engagement, from consumptive to participatory. “People want different things from their experiences; some might be passive, others more outgoing. Some may be new fans, others long term superfans. The idea is to connect with as many people as possible, and to do it on their terms.”
Employing the right combination of technologies for each client is essential for success. “We always begin with the client’s objectives. What story are they trying to tell? What type of guest or fan are they trying to reach? Do they wish to drive attendance, create a must-visit destination, or turn guests into lifelong fans? Perhaps all three?” says Williams. “A well-designed visitor journey generates deeper, longer-lasting relationships between guest and host, reaches into homes and permeates lives. It is a pathway to community, and being a part of a community is a pillar of loyalty.”
Drive personal connection from the start
Journeys can, and for greatest effect, should, begin before guests attend a physical venue. “Smartphones – those tools in everyone’s pocket – are key to unlocking that initial connection,” says Williams. “Bespoke apps are portals through which you invite them to hear your message, to peek into and engage with your storyworld.” Apps can introduce a storyline, product or service, offer information, teach skills, provide challenges and give users opportunities to more fully enter your universe.
Looking to extend the pre-theme park experience while driving attendance to PortAventura World (Spain), LaLiga Entertainment worked with COPA90 and UNIT9 to create The Beat Challenge, an original, immersive experience that reimagined football fan engagement and set the precedent for an entirely new generation of park experiences. While the full experience – a hybrid gaming activation that uses digital overlays to bring PortAventura World to life – is only unlocked in-park, visitors could access a teaser session to test their skills and whet their appetite, bringing the window of venue-guest connection forward and building excitement for their visit.
Encourage active participation
The visitor experience can transition from content consumption to a more active, participatory role once at a destination. Guided and challenged by 200-foot-tall AR footballers, The Beat Challenge players reach new levels of immersion once they enter the PortAventura World gates, unlocking different football- themed games in each area of the park the more they explore.
To maximize their personal connection to the experience, users are able to create their own unique avatars and become characters within their storyworld, allowing them to connect with other visitors, share their experiences and facilitate the formation of communities and social networks,* bonding themselves more closely to the PortAventura universe.
During their journeys as avatars, visitors are encouraged to collect items of value, whether through skill or simple participation. Tokens, weapons, gear, outerwear, all manner of elements can be collected, tagged and tracked to a specific avatar. Prompts can encourage deeper explorations and promote visits to physical venues, showing how both digital and real-world elements can be used in collaboration to drive a more immersive in-park experience where the guest becomes the hero.
UNIT9’s “The Continental Experience” activation used a similar method by pulling fans into the world of movie character John Wick, making them an integral part of the experience by giving them freedom to explore an exact replica of the assassin’s famous safe haven built inside One Hanson Place, the shooting location for the films.
“This activation was all about blending realities to extend the John Wick universe beyond the screen and bring it to life around the fans, allowing them to feel like they really are a part of it.” says Williams. Details matter when recreating familiar storyworlds, and this one-of-a-kind immersive event included seven interactive stations and wall-to-wall engaging experiences, each drawing fans deeper into Wick world. Guests checked in at the front desk, collected gold coins, and learned if they were “excommunicado” for the evening. Details included bulletproof suit jacket fittings, immersive theater actors, a ballet performance, special swag, and an exclusive gallery of John Wick fan art.
Offer physical Immersion for all
For standalone attractions, emerging tools offer new possibilities for placing guests within ever more immersive environments. Projection mapping, touch screens, 360 vistas, surround sound, motion bases, animatronics, props, aroma dispensing, VR and AR experiences, haptic devices and more can all be integrated to provide unmatched multisensorial experiences. One of the most exciting and important benefits of these increasingly powerful technologies, Williams notes, is the ability to ensure that everyone, regardless of capabilities, can now participate in and enjoy these facilities more fully.
Highly themed environments, including museum exhibitions, can be augmented with in-phone apps, offering thematic wayfinding, informational assistance, games and more depending on visitor preference. To mark its centennial celebration, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) launched Anyang: China’s Ancient City of Kings, a special exhibition featuring bronzes, jades, and other Shang Dynasty artifacts from the birthplace of Chinese archeology. UNIT9 collaborated with the museum’s team to incorporate three immersive and interactive experiences for different types of onsite visitors, as well as make the exhibitions accessible virtually.
Hidden Dragons AR, a mobile WebAR (web-based augmented reality) scavenger hunt, took museum patrons on a journey through the NMAA’s two buildings. It challenged players to find six ancient dragons hidden on virtual replicas of bronze artifacts from the museum’s collection. The hunt enhanced the visitor experience and connected the Anyang exhibition (both literally and thematically) with the Ancient China galleries.
For those wishing to engage on a slightly less involved scale within the exhibition, Life in the City: An Anyang Neighborhood offered an interactive kiosk with a touchscreen and a wall-mounted display that explored daily life in Anyang. A simple and intuitive app on the screen allowed visitors to easily navigate the neighborhood and fed content relevant to the features and topics selected on the map to the wall display.
And to complete the trio of experiences, The Anyang Underground provided an immersive multi-screen video installation that served as a digestible introduction to (and end point of) the overall exhibition. Multiple screens told a single narrative of the first excavations at the Anyang dig site in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and featured archival photos, footage, drawings, and documents. Speakers were placed in the gallery to truly immerse visitors in the world of Anyang.
For patrons who couldn’t make it to the physical exhibit, the museum is also launching The Anyang Underground 360, an immersive, accessible WebGL (web graphics library) translation of the physical installations on the NMAA website. “The success of these interconnected projects ultimately hinged on the close bond and partnership formed between our team at UNIT9, and our clients at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art…. Together we produced work that we could never have imagined independently,” says Shelley Adamson, Creative Director, UNIT9.
Keep the connection alive
One of the most critical components of the audience journey – and yet often forgotten – is the follow-up. Smartphone and computer apps offer a wide range of opportunities for post-visit acknowledgement, connection, feedback and encouragement for repeat visitations. For instance, a gamified digital companion at a venue could still provide content for fans post-visit, from leaderboard results to extra items for their avatar, discounts on merchandise, or the chance to win tokens to spend on their next visit.
Incorporating rich, shareable content for users to relive their experience post-visit is also key. UNIT9’s mixed reality activation for Meta during their Rugby World Cup tour around France last year culminated with users unlocking exclusive AR filters to commemorate their day and showcase their fandom, allowing them to share their experience with friends and family at home.
Welcoming the guest home and treating them as treasured members of the family helps retain that connection, builds a stronger community and will ultimately keep them coming back to visit again. “While projects might use some or all of the building blocks on this spectrum to bring their world to life, the story and experience should remain king; the technology is just the vehicle,” says Williams. “The client’s goals, target audience, story, definition of success and a hundred other factors go into developing a great 360 guest experience.”
Only when those issues are understood and addressed can the team turn its talents to building the ideal audience journey block by block, mapping an integrated universe for each client. “We live in a world where leading-edge, transformative technologies can do amazing things,” Williams says. “But it is the purpose and care and passion put into assembling a complete narrative-based experience that creates amazing results.” • • •
Attractions by UNIT9 creates visitor-centric projects that reset sensorial expectations within museums, cultural institutions, architecture, retail, theme parks and other location-based entertainment venues. Supercharged by the transformative power of technology, the experiences they realize transcend the physical and digital worlds to drive attendance, make places famous and turn guests into lifelong fans.
