Why "Living Stories" Are the Only Way to Sell

And the thing I want to emphasize is that you can tell somebody something, but if you let them experience it in an embodied way, then they remember it. Like we forget things were told, we sometimes are transformed by things we experience. Welcome back to Brands & Play, your podcast for everything immersive marketing. I'm Nick Hill, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Sawhors. I'm Mel Ben Priyue, strategic marketing consultant. This week on the show we have LEGO ceiling the spotlight at CES. Roblox rolls out a new advertising format. Chipotle dives into college football gaming and Fortnite flips a switch on in-eiland transactions. And for our real-time review, I'll be giving you a first-hand look inside of Cosm, the immersive shared reality venue in Los Angeles. And later we'll be joined by Charlie Melcher, whose new book, The Future of Story and Telling, explore where immersive media is heading. That's right, and if you're liking the show, make sure to give us a follow. We break down how Brands, platforms and creators operate inside of gaming, UGC platforms and immersive media. Let's get into it. Let's go. Awesome, another week, Alban, how are you? I'm doing really well. How was CES? Tell me all about it. CES was overwhelming. Yeah. I had an amazing time, but I will say it is like the worst time for a conference. It literally is the first week back to work. And you basically like your company is doing its thing. You're gone in Vegas trying to figure stuff out. And like, I think everyone complains about this. But yeah, just because it's like, okay, it's far enough. Yeah, it's like, I got to go to this conference. I got a network. I got to figure all this stuff out. Meanwhile, the company is running. I don't know what's going on. You know, it's like everyone's in that same boat. And now I feel relieved because I'm back, like, meeting with people, figuring out what's going on. Yeah, yeah. I'm standing with the, you know, the vision of the company is. Now, so this week is your proper first week back in the office? That's how it feels. But it was amazing. I saw a lot of incredible stuff. It's super inspiring. It saw a lot of amazing people who I got a lot of respect for that sort of inspired me to do more amazing work. This year. So I'm glad I went. But what about you? I hear you have a pretty amazing announcement. I do have some news, which I know you have been aware for some times. But I wanted to let our listeners know that I will be going on my turn to leave at the end of the month. So I will, my last episode will be at the end of January, but a very exciting time. But very sad. Obviously, you know, let the team behind, but it's a very exciting, obviously, challenge, new challenge or new chapter for me. This is all new, but I'm really excited. Ooh, congratulations. That is such an amazing achievement. Much respect. Thank you so much. Well, we're going to keep the show going even when Alban is out. And I will say those are extremely big shoes to fill. But our plan is we're going to be partnering with some amazing thought leaders of connections that we have in the industry. So we've got some pretty amazing people lined up and excited to have them help me run the show. Well, how about that? I think the show will go on. The show must go on. The show must go on. The show must go on. So he's jumped straight into the news, actually. Yes. Let's go to the news. All right. So from my first story coming out of CES Lego has unveiled the smart play at CES introducing the smart brick, which essentially is a classic Lego brick with embedded sensors, lights and sounds that react to how kids play in the sort of a dynamic response way. And there's no screens required. So it's very sort of like tactile. Did you see this announcement? You know, I didn't really dig into like what it meant, what it was initially. I thought it was a bit of like a stun. And it was a real product. Yes. I think that teaser is so broad that people are like, cool. What is it? Yeah. I was just like, oh, great. It's just like a, you know, a made futuristic block. But I didn't realize that it had some interaction and like connect like technology around it. I would describe it as a smart brick that can kind of sense its surrounding and interact with other smart bricks. It has lights. It has sounds. It has story. And so I think from a creative standpoint, as you're building with bricks, if those bricks are smart. And there's no sort of interface with like screens and apps. It's just a new kind of tactile way of being creative. So I think it's pretty awesome. That's pretty, yeah. Yeah. Really interesting. How have you been able to like see it? I watched the long-form demo that kind of shows what you can do. Okay. It's pretty exciting. But I think what brings us back to the marketing lens. What is so exciting is the way that they promoted this at CES, which is pretty mind-blowing. I feel like this is a great example of immersive marketing. So in March, when this first product comes out to the public, it's going to be inside Lego Star Wars sets, which Lego has a long history of partnering with Star Wars to make sets. And so I think it's a great fit. But for the marketing, Lego went big at CES. They turned the Las Vegas sphere into the Death Star. Did you see that? No, I didn't see that. Oh man, it is so dope. They basically took over the spear for a night. They reskin the entire thing to be the Death Star from Star Wars. And then they built a huge X-wing, one of the planes from Star Wars. And they put it in the parking lot, facing the Death Star. I'm seeing it now. Yes, dude, it's mind-blowing. And they basically allowed fans to come in and sit in the cockpit and then play a mini-game, which essentially is the classic trench run scene from Star Wars. Yeah, yeah. They go in and Luke Skywalker launches the rocket into the center and explodes. So it allowed fans to play and kind of engage and learn about this new smart play technology. And yeah, just an amazing example of immersive marketing. We're talking about hands-on gamification, leveraging pop culture moments and leaning into nostalgia for young and new fans. And making a huge impact. I mean, like that is the biggest screen for marketing in the world as far as size. It's just a perfect example of how to do things right. Yeah, I mean, Lego is on the path. Like the proof it last year already that they were really good. I had an amazing entertainment strategy and starting the year, what right? I think with this new piece. But I'm excited. I want to see it now that I know it's real. I thought it was just a, I don't know, like a prototype. And there was not going to go live or anything like that. So exciting. Yeah, super dope. What do you got next? So next up is also an announcement that happened at CES. I felt like CES is the place to be if you are in immersive media, gaming tech, et cetera. But Roblox has introduced a new advertising formats. So quite, like quite excitingly, they've announced the expansion of their programmatic partnerships. So we knew already that they had a partnership with Google that has now been extended to Amazon and other DSP and SSP, which are going to later. But first and foremost, there's two new formats. One in particular is the homepage feature. So they had already teased that I think last year, but this is now a new format essentially that brand can leverage that will sit within the homepage. I have an, I've read several articles about it and I'm not too sure if I grasp what it is. So I'll explain and I might, I might tweak and come back to this in other episodes just to make sure that I got it right. But for my understanding, essentially, this is a vignette thumbnail where you click on it and it brings you to like a 3D environment, the same way as an immersive experience that you would have. The difference here is that it plays. That's where I go into a few, because from the press release, it sounds like any video creative is then can be turned into a 3D environment. Which I didn't see in the, I can clarify because they showed the, they showed an example of Sam's Club, which already has an experience. So for me, it just looked like a video essentially that was played in a 3D environment. But from the way that it's like turned, they made it sound like any video creative could be turned into a Roblox 3D setting. I can clarify it. So because we were involved in this slightly, but essentially, because I wasn't too sure which one it was once in really like, it's both with AI, I guess development and the other one is more like a 3D theater where you can watch it. Well, it's a little bit of both because it's like we're talking about the landing page now being leveraged as an advertising sort of ad tech product, which is huge. Because Roblox, again, just to remind our listeners is 151 million daily active users, so the impression on that homepage is going to be massive. It's great. And then basically it's a banner, so you can click on to it. And if you're doing something cool on Roblox, it'll take you right to that experience. But if you're not and you just want to basically you have trailers and you just want to run them, basically it would bring the user into a 3D world where your trailer is playing. And then the visuals in the world are kind of influenced by that trailer art. So it's a 3D environment that's that is created to house that trailer. So it's a more native experience for the player. Gotcha. OK. So it's a bit of a combo between you're watching the 2D video like that. Imagine I have a brand, I've got a campaign, you can put that video within that 3D environment and then the 3D environment itself is slightly tailored to what's in the video. Exactly, and little effects and stuff that are kind of a 3D, that are kind of popping up the screen. Little things to make it more engaging and more relevant to a gaming sort of immersive audience. Sounds good. Okay, so that clarifies that. Thank you so much Nick, because there wasn't too sure on the press release what it was and it sounded like it was the full thing that was going to be talented experience. No, I felt the same way. I went to a real box mixer. I know that AI is very powerful, that was like this is too far ahead. Anyway, just for just a real recap, while listening is the way that the standards process to buy that is through CPM based. So similar ways to the way that you buy media on other platforms. The other model, the other format, sorry, that is being more expanded. So this is something that's already been tested is rewarded video. So this is now being essentially being like active into more more gameplay and more different experiences. And this is already a format that has been tested and quite successful. So they're just essentially expensive this capacity around that. And going back to the expansion of their programmatic partnerships, that is something that's really interesting. So as I mentioned last year Google was their main partner, but on the DSP side, we now have Amazon and also liftoff. And on the SSP side, we now have inner-sexchange, magnaut and popmatic. So essentially what that allows for brands is a way to buy media on Roblox in the same automated tools that they're already utilizing. Now this is really like seamless in order to buy media. So this is great news again. The other thing that I thought was interesting, sorry, like last thing on that is that in the press release of Roblox announcing this expansion, they were really pushing on several sectors. And I think there was something a bit of a shift on how brands are engaging in what sector is now leading. Back in 2021 and 2022, I think the focus would have been on consumer good and fashion brands, but here in this specific announcement, they were pushing specific sector that would benefit from these new ad format. Sports, entertainment, toys and financial services. So I thought it was quite interesting to see how Roblox is kind of shifting their attention towards different sector and they're seeing more, like I guess, more success towards different sectors and maybe fashion and beauty and maybe other other sectors that, you know, back in 2021, 2022, we're kind of leading in the way with the avatar as well into probability. I think now just thought it was quite interesting to see that in the press release that would push in specific sectors. Yeah, I mean, they've seen a lot of success in those sectors. Exactly. You know, their growth opportunities. I do feel like, you know, eventually, all kind of verticals will be leveraging gaming, but I think right now some are more successful and than others. Well, do you have next? Next up is all about how Chipotle has activated and partnered with EA Sports College Football 26. I got to say Chipotle is one of the leaders when it comes to game marketing. They've been at it for years. They've done stuff on Roblox stuff inside of AAA. They get the space they've partnered with eSports. I've been very impressed with Chipotle's POV. But to break it down, they essentially have dropped a custom taste victory college ultimate team pack inside of the game itself. Okay. And they've also featured the game in the Chipotle Challenger series, which is their online tournaments. So how it works, gamers can unlock the exclusive taste victory pack and that features two high rated players for their unlimited team roster by ordering through the Chipotle app or the website with a promo code. And then as far as the Challenger series, it's a month-long tournament hosted by PlayStation tournaments and let's players compete in the game for prizes like points inside the game, exclusive avatars and free Chipotle codes to get food IRL. I think just to mention that again, it goes back to some of the points that we've made before where Chipotle has been on other platforms. They've done something a little bit similar with there was a bit of an interaction between the in-game activation and in real life on Roblox. So they've done that. And I think that's the case that he that comes back a lot because it was really successful when they've done it on the platform. Yeah. I mean, I think the point is that if you're a brand, you should not be saying, you know, what is my Roblox strategy or what is my Fortnite strategy? You should be saying, what is my gaming strategy? What does that mean? What am I trying? If I'm trying to reach this audience, where are they? They're scattered. So how are you applying strategy to reach them to see the most success? But what's up? You got one more story, right? One more story, which is an exciting one. It's Fortnite in island transaction that are now live. So this was already announced last year, but it's now coming to fruition. So what that means is that any developer can now sell digital items and gameplay pucks inside their game on Fortnite Creative. And the user will be able to use Vbox in order to redeem those those items. What is, I just wanted to clarify because I think there was a lot of like confusion or speculation about what type of items developers will be able to sell. Just to recap, what you will be able to sell as a developer are consumables. So there's like health potions, aminitions, durable. So that's like permanent tools, weapons only in your games. There's no interpability with other experiences within Fortnite and also access. So imagine like there's an area that is like VIP only. You can essentially have your user buy to get access to that area. What is not included in what you can sell is Fortnite cosmetic, which I think people were initially thought that would be the case. Fortnite cosmetic is still a prime product of Fortnite and it's not including in that similar for XP because again, that would like mess up the whole like battle pass thing that they have. It's not that and also real world physical goods is not included in there. The good thing however is that up until end of this month creators that sell item will have 100% of the revenues. So that's insane when you compare it to any other platform. And after that, so suppose that date it will be 50/50, which is still like less less be real is still better than Roblox. If if you sell digital items within a Roblox experience right now 70% of that revenue goes to Roblox. So having a 50 like Fortnite is essentially trying to show to developers that they can make more revenue and trying to become this creator economy that's you know, they were a bit slow to start. So I think that's why that's how they're kind of redeeming themselves is that having a revenue share that's a little bit more profitable to developers. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, it's exciting. It's awesome. It does feel like it's behind Roblox. We do know that Roblox is the front runner. They've sort of pioneered all of these models that now the other UGC platforms are sort of following. But I will say that I think Fortnite is making a lot of the right decisions based on my POV and they are doing it very quickly. So it seems like every month or every two months. Yeah, every two months. Fair enough. I think it feels a little bit like a big boat where it was like a slow to shift and slow to turn but now it's going and having quite fice in the right direction. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. They're way behind but it's like every month they're like, oh, that boom launching. Oh, and that other feature that everyone's talking about. Okay, launching it. So it's like if they keep it that clip, you know, they're going to they're going to catch up and have a lot of the same features as the competitor, especially real box. So I'm foolish and excited to see it. Yeah, absolutely. And now let's jump until your real-time review. Let's go. All right. So for this real-time review, I was super stoked because I got to go to Cosm in Los Angeles. Are you familiar with with Cosm? No, I got the name wrong twice. Obviously, I have not got Cosm. I called it Cosm, but no. Tell me about it. What is it? That is fair because they are there's no Cosm locations in the UK. They're only in America at the moment. So the way I've been sort of describing this is it's almost like a little mini sphere. So if you bend to the sphere, it's basically like a massive screen and it's immersive and you sit down. It's kind of like that on a smaller scale. Okay. And they're calling it a shared reality than you because it's all very communal. You know, you do it in a large audience and you're all immersed together. And these locations are about 65,000 square feet. They're pretty large. They can hold up to about 2000 people for each viewing. And right now there's two locations, one in LA, one in Dallas, and there's two that are under construction. One in Detroit and one in Atlanta that are coming this year. And the Cosm group has seen a lot of success. They raised over $250 million in funding and they want to build 50 more of these. So maybe one in every state, I don't know, but it's pretty lofty. I hope one in like outside, I don't know. You need one in Hawaii. I mean, come on. But so basically what it is is it's like fans can watch lots of live sports. So NBA NFL UFC and they You can also watch films, but the films have to be like custom created because what's outside of the frame has to be built and sort of created. They're running two movies right now in the LA location, The Matrix and Willy Wonka. And it's just pretty unbelievable when you experience it in real life. We're talking about an 87 foot diameter LED dome screen with 12K resolution that wraps these visuals around the viewer for this really immersive experience. Basically when you sit in the chair, it's like you can look forward and down and all the way up to the ceiling and to both sides and all you see is image. So it's very cool. Facility itself is kitted out like a stadium. You know, they've got sort of bar areas that you can walk around like massive screen TV's just everywhere. So like from sporting event kind of POV, it's a very cool spot to hang out. The seating is great. Nice couches. Waders come to your table, deliver you food and drinks. And then in between like commercial breaks, there's a DJ playing music and an MC on the mic, like sort of giving you games to play and interacting with the audience. It is pretty cool. So I went and I saw an LA Lakers game on the Lakers fan. It was Lakers versus Spurs. And so I brought my family, my son's a huge basketball fan. So we were just really kind of loving that. And what's really interesting is that what it is, it's giving you a unique way to watch these games. And I'm not saying just unique because of the technology. It's unique because of the angle. You know, we've all seen so many different sports coverage in our lifetimes on big screen TVs. This is all national sort of standard broadcast. But this is, is it's giving you a court side POV. So imagine like the seat that is literally touching the view. That are the front. Right. So you're not looking at it from like a three quarters top down wide. You're looking at it as if you're just staring right at these players. That close. I'm sure the sound system must make it feel like really. Oh, yeah. You can hear the players talking. You can hear extra little bits of dialogue. And what I think is so fantastic about it is that so it's four, like about four angles. Every time the players go to a different geographical location on the field or the court, it shifts to another angle. But you're always, you're basically always court side. So what you're seeing is so close and so low. So it's just a unique way to watch a game. And what's great is because the screen is so big, you can see all the details that you never get on a broadcast. And you definitely don't get in real life because most people aren't can't afford those tickets. They're not there every time. Yeah, yeah. So what I got to see was like the eye contact that team members would have all the little details of the, you know, kind of like players like pushing each other and stuff like you're getting all of that in a way that you don't normally take in. So that to me was super unique. But the Lakers lost. So blue is super bummed on that was a close game though. I got a game props. So the good I would say this is very immersive and it's a unique way to watch a game. If you're a sports fan and your team is playing, it's one thing you just have to do. We're quick question where people like was it was it busy when people like were you? Yeah, I would say it was probably like 70% full. Okay. And it was like there was a bit of like this match atmosphere. Like, you know, I was like, and that was another good thing. I like big energy. You know, like when the big play would happen, people would stand up like, they must feel like even like, I don't know. It's live. It feels real real. How do you like your reaction? I heightened. Yes. I will say it's not like being out of real game where it's so loud and you're surrounded by the people like the whole stadium like that's its own unique thing. But it this is definitely way more intense than watching it at like a, like a friend's house with like six people. It felt like you were experiencing something together, which I thought was really cool. And then as far as like they played some trailers for the Matrix and it's just, it's just so different. I haven't watched a movie there yet, but I want to having seen that. Now, the negative side first strike against it, limited inventory. They only have select games, you know, not every game is there. So you can't, if you're a huge fan, you can't see every game you want. It's very selective. Also, only two movies. So let's say you love, if you love Cosm, you're gonna, you're gonna run out of inventory and then you're, you're basically gonna have nothing to watch. So that's something that they're gonna have to solve. Also the cost can be a little tricky. From my research, I saw that like I think you can go watch one of the movies for about $30 for a seat, but some of the games can get upward of like $200 to $300 per ticket. Oh, wow. So, you know, you know, my tickets cost around two something each. But meaning like if you go to the stadium, is that a similar cost then? I would say probably, if you want to get good seats, if you want those seats, it's thousands of dollars. Right, yeah. Okay. But if you want to go see a game, it's probably like, you know, a couple hundred bucks, maybe a 300 bucks. Okay. So you could potentially be in the ATM, not the same angle, but. Yes. Yeah. So that's the cost issue has to be figured out. Okay. And then another strike is location. You know, there's only one in LA. It's not close to my house. It's not convenient for me to go. I wouldn't go all the time. I would say if there's more locations and I had the opportunity, like it's the same drive as going to the theater or a cosm, I would much rather go to a cosm. Last question. Is it innovative? Yes. I would say this is a really immersive, cool, innovative thing to do. Not everybody can go to the sphere in Las Vegas. This is the next best thing. I wonder, is this the future of theatrical viewing in general? Like, if you're going to go into a theater and sit down, like, I, you know, staring at a black, you know, rectangle is way less interesting to me. I feel like if this catches on, it could be a new way to watch the games. I'm sure they'll do something for the Olympics. I feel like that's come. They have to. The problem is they have to create these, like, deals, these licensing deals, you know? So that's the challenge. Yeah, I don't know if you need that specific camera as well. If you're building a special camera, you need all this stuff. So it's like, that's why they're not covering every game. Yeah. They'll get there. But I don't know. What are your thoughts about all this? I think, I think, with all of these new, like, event spaces, you pointed it out. It's what makes you want to come back. Because I think once you've experienced a technology one, so that's something. It feels like a little bit when we had, you know, like 3D movies. Avatar was amazing. And then all films at the time started to do 3D. And it was like, Green Lantern. Does it really need to be in 3D? No. And I'm just thinking, like, with these kind of spaces, it's like, what is going to be the longevity where there might be a few instance, like, really important games, etc. that might make so much sense. I just don't know if all films really deserve to have that kind of, you know, technology. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good call. I mean, I think I have a terrible make sense. Like, there's a few films like The Storyline makes sense, but, you know, the holiday, like a casual, a casual film. I don't know if it needs that kind of like a romcom. Like, you know, fit there. I don't know. That's a good, that's a good argument. But thank you so much for going there, Nick, because I feel like that gives us a bit of insight on what's happening in the US when you all hear. I feel like all of those new texts are happening in the US, which is a bit frustrating, but we're spoiled. Hey, Ho. But now let's jump on to our interview with Charlie Melcher, also of the future of Storytelling. Let's go. Today, we're joined by Charlie Melcher. He's a leading voice in how stories, technology and brands come together to create immersive experiences. He's the founder of Melcher Media and FOSS, the future of Storytelling, a global platform exploring how interactive and experiential narratives are shaping culture and business. Charlie is also the author of the new book, The Future of Storytelling. He covers groundbreaking immersive campaigns and living stories. I got my copy right here and I can highly recommend it. And today, we'll explore how these ideas are transforming marketing and what brands need to understand to stay relevant. Charlie, welcome to the show. Thank you, Nick. I'll be and I'm so excited to be here with you. It's so good to have you. Thank you so much for joining us today. Let's jump in on it. So, the first question I have for our audience is, can you explain the concept of living stories and why you're so passionate about it and why you write this book? I've had this remarkable opportunity to participate in these new forms of Storytelling over the last 15 years that totally blew my mind and I realized that I was seeing connections between them from different disciplines, from different technologies, different genres and all of it coming together to make this new trend. It went more than a trend. What I really believe is the next revolution in Storytelling from the world that we all grew up in, where stories were fixed and flat and two-dimensional and non-responsive and anti-social and you just had to sit there and watch them to stories where you get to participate in the story, where it's agentic, immersive, embodied, responsive, social and because of all those things, transformative. A new kind of stories where you are an active participant and you are living the story. That's the expression living stories. I love that. I love you enthusiasm already around the topic. I guess for our listeners to give them a bit of a context around what you mean by living stories. Could you give us examples that you've mentioned and highlighted in the book on how brands can also leverage this as part of their immersive marketing? Well, I'll tell you the first one that really stayed with me was actually an immersive theater experience. So it wasn't a brand story, but it was with Punch Drunk, which is this wonderful British immersive theater company. I had the good fortune of having a one-on-one experience with an actress. And so I went in as a voyeur, and then I realized somehow in the middle that I was an active participant, literally auditioning for the role of the leading man in this story. And I left that changed. I mean, I've told the story hundreds of times, I will never forget it. I went about the rest of my trip to London thinking that it was a city with adventure waiting for me around every corner, like I felt like I was James Bond. And so that was my very first mind-blowing, altering life-changing immersive experience. But I've seen many examples of these happening with brands all over the world. One of my favorite examples, which was for Amazon Echo. This was an escape room that they created around the product. And you had to use the product. You went into the escape room, and you had to talk to Amazon Echo to ask it to help do things, like turn the lights on or open the door. And so you did it with a small group of people. It was based on a spy thriller. It was just completely mind-blowing. It was life-changing. There were people who came out of it saying they waited their whole lives to experience something that exciting. And what I thought was amazing was that they couldn't have done a product demo. They could have sent up Hems on Echo and just had people touch it and talk to it and explain the features. Instead, they wrapped it in a story world where you had to learn how to use the product in order to escape the room, to survive the spy thriller. And people left not just excited about it. First, they left becoming very adept with the product, but they also became evangelists. Every person who left that was out there telling people how extraordinary it was to be able to have that kind of connection with the speaking function of this product. It was just so brilliant because the form and the content were so carefully harmonized and brought together. And because they used emotional storytelling to augment your first experience with what could have been very confusing or off-putting of a technology. And truly, the impact it had. There were long lines of people wanting to get into it. And the social media impact was huge. And they had all these influencers. And so the money was very well spent in terms of impressions and marketing impact. And I just used that as one of my, even though it's a few years old, as one of my favorite examples, because they did such a great job of marrying form and the content in a really powerful, authentic way. And I think the key word there is story. Like when you have a message and you're trying to communicate it, if you leverage story, then there's investment and there's passion and there's connection in it. And it's such a deep way that resonates with audiences. So the book covers so many amazing branded campaigns. In your opinion, do you have a favorite, a favorite, beyond the Amazon one? Yeah, I would have to say one of the most all-time favorites and most successful of all-time, frankly, is what HBO did for Westworld at South by Southwest. And again, this is a few years ago now, but they reconstructed the town, the Western town that the show takes place in. They built a whole series of narrative paths with, I think it was something like 40 actors and 400 pages of dialogue and stories. And everybody who came got to choose a white hat or a black hat and you lived in the town of Sweetwater, which was the town from Westworld. It was so well done, such attention to detail, such rich storytelling, and so completely immersive, because you really once you're there, you felt you were in this world. Again, a great marrying of form and content, because obviously that's sort of what the story Westworld, the show is about, you know, getting to go play in a very futuristic immersive world. Again, the impact that it had, the return on dollars for the marketers, I'm told that they put the whole marketing budget for that show for that year into this one activation. And it paid off a thousand times every person who left. It was the hottest ticket at South by like you could get in, you know, you did, you begged to get in and people talked about it and posted about it and shared about it and all sorts of free media about it. I mean, it was truly it's going to go down the history books of one of the most innovative marketing and certainly immersive marketing experiences of all time. And so that's the real difference. It needs, it needs marketers to understand that it's not about impressions. You know, it's about impact and and the ability to change someone's life and to create something that stays with them where they don't just recognize it or acknowledge it. They actually become an evangelist. They become a walking promoter of this thing because it was so moving. They can't wait to tell everyone they know about it. It ties in, I really agree with you. I think it ties in with with my next question because I think a lot of brands are leveraging traditional formats at the moment to be able to engage with their with their consumer, whether being on social TV or even like streaming platforms. And when we look at immersive media or all the examples that you've mentioned here, I would love to understand like, I mean, you've already talked about it, but what is really different. And I guess how can brand really think about the value that these formats can bring to their brand, but also like their product sales. So I quote in the book, a scientific study that talked about people's ability to remember things based on if they learned it from reading it or if they learned it by doing it. The actual studies actors who learned their lines either by sitting and memorizing them off the script or they did it while blocking it on the stage. So that they had a kind of embodied memory when they said this line, they did this when they said this when they did this. The actors who learned their lines through physical blocking kept that memory four or five times as long as the people who learned them off the regular script. So I guess part of the message here again, repeating it, but the ability to let people physically engage means that they're using all of these senses that way beyond their eyes and their ears. I mean, I'm amazed at how much of our world we we and certainly almost all of our stories, we consume just through our eyes in our ears. When science again has shown that we might have as many as 30 different senses in our bodies. So imagine if your entire life all you could do is tell a story or be a painter with two colors. And now you have the opportunity to play to 30 colors. I mean, it's a whole new world of language to the body. Yeah, I love that. That's really well said. And I think, you know, one of the challenges we have with agency is a lot of the traditional filmmakers and storytellers aren't aren't like used to giving any agency to their audience. So I think as some of the best storytellers of our time, you know, leverage these new technologies, these new immersive experiences. They have a lot of a lot to learn and a lot of challenges to kind of break through. But I wanted to go talk a little bit about KPIs and how brands measure success of these because brands are so used to traditional measurement that we all have like, you know, had for a long time. Now this is a new way of measuring and understanding if it was successful or not, you know, you mentioned earlier that consumers have to they walk away become evangelists for the brand, which I think is awesome. But what other type of KPIs really can be tracked and reported on as if the brand with the activation was successful. You know, it's a great question. And I do think that it's one that hasn't been solved yet. I think that the level of engagement that somebody has when they've had an immersive experience with a brand is so much more so much deeper than when they've seen some banners or some some simple messages flashed at them. So we need a way to measure that depth of engagement and depth of impact. I also think we need to be able to track it over time, right, because you forget things just like that actor is referencing you forget once you when you're just seeing quick impressions. But when you've engaged with something, you have a muscle memory, it gets ingrained in your in your brain and you're more likely to talk about it and tell others. So again, it's it's depth and longevity that are the two things that we need to get better ways to measure so that we can see. that the people who left South by Southwest's experience for HBO, I mean, they still talk about it. And I don't know how many, you know, there aren't that many traditional ads or banner ads or whatever that people have that they talk about years later. No, I agree. I think it's the memory of like experiencing essentially that performance that I think generates advocacy. I'm wondering however from a brand perspective, I think, you know, brands are being marketed, are being challenged in the last recent years with new platforms like Roblox or Immersive Media, New Text, AI, etc. There's a lot I think of of pressure around them to be able to leverage these new formats. In your opinion, what I guess is the biggest challenge that you've seen with this format to be successful and how should markets as think about it, especially when you have now, you know, as you mentioned, the audience is no longer passive and you want them to co-create with you. So love to understand from you what is the do's and the don't, I guess, for these types of experiences not to be negative advocacy to say there was the worst experience for them but the best experience for them has ever been any learnings from the examples that you've seen so far that would be useful for this and is. I do believe that marketers need to think very differently. They need to shift from believing that they're the hero or their product is the hero and their job is simply to push this story of their product onto their customers and shift to a whole different perspective of their job being to empower, to collaborate with them, to succeed in their lives, to be, you know, more successful and more fulfilled. I think it's a very different mindset and it's hard to sometimes get across but I think this desire to create your own, to be able to express yourself, to be able to be social, to work with others. Those are such strong human needs that are, that when they're met, when there's a way to provide, it's almost like provide more of a platform than a product, right? Provide your customers with the opportunities to be creative, to express themselves, to connect with others, to find, you know, somehow more fulfillment, that's going to create the kind of loyalty and turn them into advocates of angeles, to have them co-creating with you or telling your story for you. I think it really has to come from enabling from the bottom up as opposed to trying to, you know, push a message from the top down. That's what I said, you know, that's kind of the reason of my next question talking about, you know, what's the difference? Like, how do we know when we have a very successful experience versus like just a marketing stunt? You know, is there one sort of rule of thumb to follow? This is one of the things that I see happening now, which in part of the reason I think we're going through a hockey puck kind of growth in this space is we were struggling with how to do these types of experiences on a larger scale. There were lots of great people doing them on small scales. Even fact, even some of them, you know, one person at a time like Yumi Bumbum train in the UK and London, which is an amazing experience for one person at a time, not scalable. But the ability to get to doing these at a larger scale and being able to have a lot of people obviously drive the economics and drive the impact. And we're just starting to see that now with things like Abba Voyage or the Sphere where we some great examples of using technology to create emotional journey and an immersive powerful experience for either 3,000 a night at Frabo or 17, 18,000 a night for Sphere. And then I really think AI is going to play an important role here, not just in terms of making the tools more available and creation less expensive. But where I see this headed is that we're going to be able to create AI actors and responsive narratives that are driven by AI, but that are actually being able to respond to you. And we won't have to we can develop a relationship with a character and you can grow and evolve as you grow and evolve. Not just as the character grows and evolve, but literally with you over time and doesn't have to end. I mean, how many of us have had that sadness of putting a book down or the last episode of a series we love that we're holding on to. We don't want to watch the last episode because it'll be over. We're going to be able to have narratives and responsive narratives that are all different kinds of lengths. You know, that aren't just going to end because the eight episodes ran out and they didn't renew. It's funny that you've mentioned Abba Voyage because I'm still amazed that you know, for holograms, the experience is still sold out pretty much every week here in London and they've been going on for a couple of years. So I think there is an opportunity as well exactly for technologies and those new massive experiences to be really successful and create tangible emotions around them. I'm thinking for our markets, brand markets, some of them are coming from FMCG brands, meaning fastest consumer goods. They're thinking more in terms of short-term campaigns, more around the volume as opposed to those really big activations. I'd love to understand, I guess, how does the concept of living story works? I guess with the mindset of short-term campaigns, do they have to remove those short-term campaigns and only focus of like those long-time activations? I'd love to understand from you how how branch you think about it. You know, I don't know if it's so much about length of campaign. I think it's about quality of engagement. I would shift that that framing and a great example is Johnny Walker Princess Street in Edinburgh, which became a signature venue for Johnny Walker. And what they did is they realized that many people didn't think of themselves as drinkers of that kind of liquor, particularly women and particularly young people. And so they knew they had this problem of how do we get them to enjoy a drink, a mixed drink with our scotch. And so one of the things that they realized is that there were taste profiles that AI had sort of figured out. So by using certain words and asking you a simple set of questions when you came in, they could identify what your palate is, what kind of drink you would like. And then they could guarantee that when they gave you your first drink on the house, when you visited, it was going to be one that you loved. And it worked. It's interesting. Like a huge number of the people who left left with a bottle thinking, gee, I really liked this. I never thought I would because they realized, oh, you like sweet drinks. Oh, and you know, you like, you know, citrusy drinks or whatever. So first drink, literally the moment it touched your lips was personalized to literally your taste buds. And that ability to customize it to that degree is shifted. I mean, that's not it. It's not a campaign, but it's an experience that you had going to that place that turns you on to become a customer of theirs, perhaps for the rest of your life. Sounds like the Wii 1 campaign factories like perfectly made for you, but you're right, where you know, even if you were to target someone five times with different campaigns, that message you might not have lended the same way as having that immersive experience. So while it might feel a bit less scalable for an FMCG brand, it is still converting that the conversion is probably a lot higher than some of the campaigns that they've done in the past. I love that activation. I want to jump now into the future and get your predictions. You know, you talk about in the book and you mentioned it a little bit earlier about how the old way of storytelling, you know, with cavemen and early civilizations, it was always interactive. It was always immersive. And then we kind of had to change the way we think and start, you know, consuming stories via just audio that are not interactive. And now we had video and now we're slowly kind of moving back into that full immersion. I love asking people this question, how do you see media and entertainment changing in the future? Are we still going to watch movies or is that going to be a thing of the past, say, in 10 years from now? Okay, love this question. And obviously it's all speculation, but that's the that's the request. I think we'll still watch movies. I think we still read books. We still go to hear people give talks. Like new new forms don't necessarily make the other ones disappear. But they need to move over and do what they do best and focus on that. So some of my thoughts about where this is headed. I believe that there's going to be a continued dissolve in of the line between analog and digital. Our ability to interact with our digital world will be more and more pervasive in our life. The combination of wearables. And I know you all have talked about on this podcast even, you know, snaps, glasses, meta glasses, all sorts of, or rings and all sorts of wearables. And the kinds of information that those collect and the kinds of information they've to us. I mean, again, this is just part of that history of technology that it becomes more and more invisible. And after so many years of the evolution of media being one of isolation and polarization and alienation, Robert Putnam identified that 25 years ago with the explosion of television and we stopped, you know, bowling with teams and church pictures and stuff. And then, of course, accelerated by social media, like living stories are things that we do together. We evolved as social beings as social animals. And I believe that these are going to bring us back to interacting with each other in a hopefully lovely way. I love your vision, Charlie, and I hope it comes true. Thank you. Me too. We need it. Yes, please. And for our listeners who want to learn more, check out the book. It's called The Future of Storytelling is a beautiful book. Well-written and amazing photos from experiences around the world. Check it out. And, Charlie, thank you so much for joining us on Brands and Play. We really appreciate your work. And yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Alvin, I love what you guys do. So appreciate you both. Thank you. Let's go back to the show. Yo, I love this guy. He is so fun to talk to. It was it was such a pleasure to talk to Charlie. I thought, I think back in the days, we call that experiential marketing. Now it's like live stories, but I feel like the learning from the interview is very much the same. It's like once you can create an emotional connection with these experiences, I think your consumers are going to be there. And I guess recall your brand a lot better. So it's more, it's less about the scalability and more about the quality of the engagement that you can get with the brand and the consumer. Agreed. I think it's so cool to talk to experts who have been tracking this space for so long. They've seen the evolution and what works, but doesn't work. We were at the day. I hope this is a growth area for 2026. These IRL activations. It's like getting people out into society and like communal sort of storytelling and marketing activation. I keep hearing a buzz that this is like one of the trends. So I hope I hope it comes to life. I'm sure it will be I feel like there's already like a anti AI. I think there's you know, I think there's there's definitely like a nostalgia thing. So I think we're going to see more in real life. People wanting to connect in real life as well. So most likely this is something that we'll see more in in 2026. Fingers crossed. But let's keep moving. Let's go to hit miss. Okay, so for my hey, I feel like this is an obvious, obvious thing. But obviously I am really excited to going on the Matanit leave. Incredibly excited about you know, baby coming. So I'm really excited about that. My miss is that I can finally I can finally share with everyone the struggle that it is to buy when you have a like a baby coming. I have found like it's really complicated to be able to know what's trawler to take, what car seat to take. I have found it's really difficult and very confusing. I spend two full days looking at different car seats and they all look the same. They all said that they said the same thing. And when you come to like safety, I felt like it was it was something that I really wanted to spend a lot of time on. But finally really confusing. But this is linking me to my bets. I've never used Gemini more than like than that. Where essentially what I was doing is that utilizing different tabs of different products is a lot of new website have AI now. But it's always giving you advice on the product that's obviously from that brand. Then I'm going to tell you that hey, the other brand actually has a better car seat than us. So you should check this out. So what I started doing is instead like for now, I felt like I was doing it the wrong way. I had my two tabs trying to compare them. So what I've done is I had so many different primes, so many different car seats. I just put it all of the tabs in Gemini and then ask question about the product and how they were different and the amazing thing with those LLMs that they create tables to compare what's like, you know, longevity after six months after a year, etc. So I just thought it was incredible. And my bet is that I think there's going to be a lot more, I guess, of integration of like I think is essentially I don't know if it's going to be directly on Gemini or if it's going to be a separate things. But something that allows you to compare websites and tabs a lot more easily where for example, like even shopping where you could compare the websites of I'll take these of Walmart and a target and you could look at what has the like lowest price. And I think that comparison is currently like limited because it's all embedded within one website. But I feel like people are going to utilize, yeah, utilize either Gemini itself or there's going to be something separate that allows you essentially to compare competitors more easily. Yeah, no, I'm fully, fully in line with that. First off, you know, congrats on your hit. It's super amazing. We're excited for you. Thank you. Being a parent myself, it's the best thing possible. But yeah, I agree. I mean, I think there's no stopping the AI influence that we'll have on the shopping and commerce. You know, like it's undeniable. I made all my decisions. Thanks to Gemini has really helped me to make all of my big purchases. Like toys, etc. That was fine. But when it came to like the primes that all of those like really big expense that you want to make sure that you make the right choice, I definitely left wrist it. And I feel like I'm thinking like when people are buying cars, etc. I like I've honestly buying a pram. I felt like buying a car like the amount of nicolities that goes into it. And that's why I think more people are going to use AI to be able to compare this product because they have no idea like it feels so complex and so foreign. I don't know why primes have to be so complex. Well, I will say when it comes to car seats, you definitely need to learn how to install them properly. It's an art. I've been taking them in and out of cars for the past like six years. I am an expert at this point. I can help you call a firm and issue. But yeah, I got you. That is it for this week. Everyone. And thank you again for listening. Next week we have a really exciting guest. We have Bastion Bergman, a co-founder of Stolston, an author of Press Play where every company needs a gaming strategy. That is a dope book definitely looking forward to having him on the show. Just want to say thank you everyone for listening and make sure to like and follow the show so we can keep bringing you the latest on immersive marketing, Edward, please. Read us out. And that was Brands in Play. Thank you for joining the podcast. We'll be exploring immersive marketing and the people who are leading it. Coast by Alband for you and Nick Hill. I'll show you today which produced by myself at a radio with Creative Direction by Joey Jeter and Audio Engineering by Simon Kieu. 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