Building Your Media Ecosystem

 

Get Engaged With Media

From the first Facebook ad through the gift shop selfie spot, media builds attention, anticipation, relationships, and brand loyalty. It can augment a live experience or co-exist as a separate but complementary income stream. It has the agility to engage multiple demographics simultaneously and give existing assets and IPs, such as a beloved themed character, a fresh, new look.

When a variety of intentionally produced points of engagement are carefully layered into visitors’ experiences, they form a functioning media ecosystem. Our job as destination planners and operators is to optimize every piece of this ecosystem as creatively as possible.

Active vs. Passive

Active media invites a response. It gives choices that create feelings of partnership between the guest and your story.

Passive media, though often used to convey helpful information (ex. a menu board), can also provoke thought and emotion. It can stimulate the imagination and encourage guests to take action in their everyday lives. Consider the effects this historical piece of passive media had on a generation.

 
 
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To optimize your ecosystem, start by gathering your team and discussing where each piece of your current media fits on this coordinating plane.

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In general, many pieces fit along these lines:

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Once you’ve made your media web, reflect on it with these questions:

  • Does your media match?

    • Are the colors, fonts, sounds, shapes, emotions, and messages coordinated?

  • When does your media start?

    • Do potential guests feel connected to your story before they even decide to visit?

  • Are you engaging all five physical senses throughout the guests’ day?

  • Does your media live past the visit?

    • Do guests continue to engage with you days, months, or years later?

  • Do you have the right mix of media for the guests that you have and the guests that you want?

PICK YOUR LANE

Not every destination can, or should, be everything for everybody. Specialization—doing something wonderfully well—is even more important than being an -est (biggest, tallest, most-est).

Consider the media for a fictional turn-of-the-century pharmacy attraction.

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It doesn’t have one thousand pieces, but it does engage multiple generations with multiple senses.

Media Evolution

One of the wonderful aspects of 21st century media is its ability to change, flex, and refresh. Enhance existing attractions with projection, swap out stories to create seasonal overlays, or adjust interactive content to increase repeatability.

Cyber sites greatly benefit from their inherent flexibility. If your Twitter account is doing nothing for you—rebrand or relaunch it! Do you have videos on Twitch or Youtube that are not generating buzz or comments? Shift the focus. Keep evolving and testing out new content and approaches.

A conscious use of these points of engagement in the media ecosystem can help push guests from casually-interested visitors to fully-invested fans of your destination.

Next week Destinology will examine how a content-rich media ecosystem can engage guests long before they buy a ticket, and beyond their visit.

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MediaPJ Tamayo, Josh Rodriguez & AD GladuComment