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Ever since social media’s rise in the marketing and communication circles, the buzz-words have been audience engagement. There is plenty of discussion about metrics, about channel effectiveness, about the gaps between just communication and engagement… In all this chatter, offline communication seems to take a back seat.
Can’t offline provide opportunities for audience engagement? What is engagement? It is the act of ‘engaging’ or ‘being engaged’, which is loosely defined as ‘to occupy the attention or efforts of a person’. (We looked it up on http://dictionary.reference.com/)
Couple of years ago, the Volkswagen print campaign in some Indian cities was a big hit. The ‘talking’ advertisement was the talk of the town – a light-sensitive device attached on to the newspaper contained an audio clip. So, you heard the ad as well as saw it.
It took about six months of effort. And guess lots of money. But it proved that print had immense potential to make you sit up and take notice, despite being a static medium.
Even without big budgets, it’s possible to build ‘engaging’ offline communication initiatives. One of our clients wanted invites that made an impact for an event they were hosting. We created a Tangram game customised with the client’s brand message. Instead of a formal invitation card, it reached the invitees with a personal letter that explained the rules of the game and asked them to play. It also invited them to the event.
The invite got a warm response and the brand got mind space.
