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Chatting up industry trends, render-to-reality programs and the changing consumer with Magnetic’s senior leadership

PART 1: CONSUMER CHANGES, DISTRACTED INTERACTIONS AND THE STARTING POINT OF EXPERIENCESEVENT MARKETER: The four of you have an interesting background. Give us the quick version.

BRIAN SCHULTZ: The quick version is that our talent is a special mix. Rick’s background is making and building things. He comes from years of expertise on the production side. Myself, Jess and Gary come from great creative agencies. Jess and I cut our teeth at CP+B and were doing the first nontraditional, non-media format kind of experiential 10 years ago. From Grey to 72andSunny to RGA and CAA, we’ve gone through some interesting places and learned a ton, always kind of focusing on the experiential narrative. The rest of our people all have similar incredible expertise.

EVENT MARKETER: How do you describe Magnetic?

JESSICA REZNICK: That’s the million dollar question for any agency. In a world where everything is evolving, the right terminol-ogy for explaining and selling your value proposition is key. One big difference is that at Magnetic we talk about ourselves like a partner more than most do. Because with everything that we’re doing, the client is involved in the process from the beginning. We’re designing the programs together; their input is not only valued but an essential part of what the finished program looks like. And we can partner with clients at many different stages and we’re happy to partner at every stage. And I think that’s why we use that word, is because, whatever you’re looking for, we can be your partner.

SCHULTZ: That variety keeps things fun. We can fit in anywhere. We have AOR relationships, and we do blended work. It’s important to col-laborate, whether it’s with PR traditional agencies, brands, other media agencies, other experiential agencies—we know that in this changing environment not everyone can do all things themselves. We’ve been very fortunate to have an amazing staff who’s been with us for a while.

EVENT MARKETER: And with that perspective in mind, how are consumers and brands changing?

SCHULTZ: I don’t think much has changed in the way that con-sumers interact with life. In looking at Magnetic’s approach to experiential, we are still rooted in how a consumer interacts with life. Of course, technology is changing how they communicate with each other and how they consume information—but the underlying fundamentals of interaction haven’t changed. Now when we look at marketing, we do see changes, mostly due to the fact that tradi-tional media no longer makes an intimate impact and consumers are primarily having what we call distracted interactions with brands. Mobile phones, earbuds, smart watches, all of these things mean that achieving a meaningful connection is getting to be a bigger challenge for marketers.

RICK RATHE: I was doing this before the term experiential joined the mainstream marketing vocabulary. And I agree: The funda-mentals of creating the experiences haven’t changed—creating that physical experience still needs that backbone of logistics—but new creativity and technology are allowing us to bring the physical experi-ences to life in new ways with a much broader reach. And those new ways allow each individual consumer to share those experiences with their friends and family.

GARY JOHNSON: The way the marketing world thinks about expe-riential has changed so much. In the beginning, it was a word that was synonymous with promotions. You know, like nightlife events. It was less about the reach, the power of every attendee. With everyone having a smartphone and a culture that is looking for constant con-tent to share, it has allowed experiential to just explode in the last 10 years. Hell, even in the last three. What we do really well is start with the consumer and then craft experiences that we believe lend them-selves to people naturally wanting to share on their own. Once we figure that out, then we talk about: how does the brand come to life within that sort of narrative? Because of our backgrounds, we know

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we need to make sure that it’s not in a vacuum and it’s happening with the full media mix around it. But if the experience is worthy of the brand’s consumer tak-ing a moment out of their life and sharing, that sort of sets up the rest of the things that happen.

REZNICK: There was a time when it was hard to understand the measurement of an experience versus the measurement of a TV spot. But amid today’s distracted interactions, with people on their phones, on their TVs, everyone’s looking at multiple screens at the same time. The engagements and measure-ment coming out of traditional forms of media are no longer meaningful engagements. So, yes, traditional media might provide big numbers and there might be big metrics compiled, but there’s nothing that gives you that one-on-one opportunity to create a connection and a meaningful engagement with your consumer like an experience. And in 2016, marketers are driving the reach of their experiences farther than ever. Social media lets these events have a longer life. SCHULTZ: Experiential is a buzz word right now. Brands are falling in love with it and they want to learn about it. A lot of what we need to do is educate them on how to do it better. You can’t look at experi-ential as just one channel. Great ideas can come from anywhere. And they’ll permeate almost all media. So brands need to start with understanding that expe-riential lends itself to a lot of different things, and appreciate the ability of technology and social media to expand the footprint of an experience infinitely.

PART 2: THE LOOK AND FEEL OF EXPERIENCES, SHAREABILITY AND THE POWER OF GREAT TALENT.EVENT MARKETER: How has the look and feel of experiences changed?

SCHULTZ: The accessibility of technology has greatly affected experience and environment design. On one side, the ability to create immersive digital environ-ments has never been easier. From microprocessors to kinetic motion tracking we have never had more control over environments. Inversely, some designers are overdoing it. Technology is not making environ-

PARTICIPANTS

BRIANSCHULTZ CHIEF EXPERIENCE OFFICER

JESSICAREZNICK MANAGING DIRECTOR

GARYJOHNSON DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY

RICKRATHE MANAGING PARTNER

ments or experiences better. It is the use of these new tools by amazing environment and experience design-ers that are really driving innovation. Innovation is being driven by the types of experiences you can create with a larger set of tools, and not how many tech ele-ments you can squeeze into a space. EVENT MARKETER: How do you try and create experiences that attendees are likely to share across their networks?

JOHNSON: We’ve spoken about our consumer-first approach, and how we work to understand what the consumer is naturally going to share, and we build the experience around that – the brand story or personality and of course the product then get woven into a con-sumer first space. The other thing we look to do, is instead of looking at “the shareable moments,” we aim to create an environment that is so awesome—so magnetic—for the consumer that the entire space naturally fits into the narrative they are creating on their social platforms.EVENT MARKETER: How do you approach design and fabrication?

SCHULTZ: The biggest difference about being an agency that’s focused on creating branded experiences is the way we approach the environment from narra-tive and experience angles. Sometimes agencies build for the sake of building.

RATHE: We take it as sort of an internal given that once the strategy team and the creatives come up with ideas, our production team, from the engineers to the architectural detailers to the final fabrication, will make sure that, from render to reality it’s seamless. I see some of our CAD drawings, and then I see our photographs of what we’ve actually produced for the client, and it’s hard to discern the difference between the two. We’re proud of that.

JOHNSON: What Magnetic is looking to do, and what we’ve gotten a lot better at recently, is walking away from each project confident that the experience is a holistic one that doesn’t feel like a set of disparate elements that the consumer will engage with or look at or see. EVENT MARKETER: What’s the Magnetic “secret sauce”?

SCHULTZ: First it’s about talent. We focus on educa-tion for our producers and the team to understand the business we run, the business we are in, and the busi-ness of our clients so that they have the power to really make effective decisions. Next it’s about the consumer mindset. We talk a lot about that feeling consumers get when they get obsessed with an event—when they want to engage with it, be a part of it. When we put ourselves in their shoes, we realize a lot of it comes down to FOMO. We want to create experiences that people are jealous they can’t go to, the media wants to talk about, and that have a fun, smart narrative that is

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easily distributed through social and other channels. And we find that it all works across both sides of the fence—with b-to-c audiences at events and activations, and with b-to-b audiences at meetings and conferences and media events.

JOHNSON: We also never force technology into things or over digi-tize. When you look at our Seinfeld apartment that we did for Hulu—a 2016 Ex Award finalist this year—or the Arrested Development banana stand we created, we had great earned media, consumer reach and engagement. These programs took over a lot of channels—that’s holistic experiential marketing. And we didn’t pepper digital through-out the experience. We let the audiences take it all digital. Our secret sauce is being able to develop experiences that speak to multiple audi-ences in a way that they sort of want to be spoken to.

EVENT MARKETER: Tell us a little about the Hulu program?

JOHNSON: Hulu came to us to help re-engage fans of one of the greatest shows of all time, Seinfeld, before it launched on Hulu for streaming of the complete series. We responded by creating the ultimate Seinfeld content generating experience by bringing Jerry’s apartment to life. The experience included a complete replica of the apartment with a museum of memorabilia and multiple content expe-riences throughout. The result was 5+ hours lines in both N.Y.C. and L.A. plus overwhelming social chatter. Even media partners begged to come by and create their own unique content in our apartment.

EVENT MARKETER: And Bacardi Art Basel?

JOHNSON: 2DV and Bacardi asked us to help create a moment that would take over the social conversation at Art Basel, provide a framework that would support a three-day Art Fair and A List performances every evening.

We responded with a holistic experience that allowed artists such as Kehinde Wiley, KAWS, and Shepard Fairey to show off their work in a gallery setting that was dubbed No Commission for its disruptive take on the artist / art dealer model, where the proceeds of the sale of every piece of art went entirely to the artist.

The performances featured Alicia Keys to Swizz Beatz to Pusha T and Wiz Khalifa, and the overwhelming response led to people not only carrying ladders to the back to the venue, but also printing fake staff credentials, all in an effort to get into what was definitely the defining art and cultural moment at Miami Art Basel.

The media felt the same way as Vanity Fair, Complex, Paper Mag and others came out to cover this incredible moment. EVENT MARKETER: To riff more on your special mix of talent and the education you do, how does it all result in better work?

REZNICK: A unique combination of people is always going to pro-duce a unique result. Our model gives clients a blend of the raw skills needed to accomplish builds paired with business-minded creatives and ad people. We take architects, engineers, technical producers, and we marry them with strategists, creatives and business leads to offer more of a modern solution that offers our clients something they can’t get anywhere else.

They all learn from each other, and our clients often tell us that they learn from us. The other thing—and trust me, this is something clients really love about us—is that clients are always getting a solu-tion that’s not only creative and culturally relevant, but it is produc-ible. We’re very transparent up front about the budget, so that there are no surprises. And we have the experience to know that we can get it done in a render-to-reality format. At the end of the day, that’s what really makes us different—we understand all of it and we’re able to deliver it every time because of the mix of professionals that we’ve put together under one roof.

EVENT MARKETER: Got it. And so, guys, as we wrap up, here’s a big question. Where’s it all going?

REZNICK: We’ve been talking a lot about what we’ve seen chang-ing. But I think one of the biggest things that we’ve seen change is that experiential used to be the last page in the deck, and now it’s moved up to the front. Even media programs are starting with expe-riences first, and using them as a set or a backdrop that really starts content and storytelling for a brand. For us, when we look at creat-ing that moment, not only do we want users turning it into content that they share while we’re increasing brand perception/awareness, but in addition we want brands to think about where it all goes from there. How do you make your TV spot based on this set and the humans that you have interacting with your brand? How do you make all your online and digital content and storytelling come out of these moments? The opportunity is there for months after an event or an experience if you just look at it that way from the beginning. I think that’s what I am most excited about, seeing a larger share of the marketing and media mix, from the start, embracing experience programs that happen a couple times a year, and really seeing how they can help people to love and embrace your brand in a way that, right now, the traditional media isn’t doing and the traditional agen-cies aren’t able to keep up with.

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“A unique combination of people is always going to produce a unique result.”

-JESSICA REZNICK

More Info: sayhi@weremagnetic.com