Technology

Every conversation in the event marketing industry eventually comes around to technology. You want to know what tools are out there to make your jobs easier, make your programs more successful and most crucially, make your target consumers love you the most. We have heard your clarion calls for help and now, with this new monthly series, EM’s own Ken Briodagh will collect and codify the hottest, newest, most interesting, best (and sometimes worst) technological doohickeys available to you.

The Super Bowl Village, the official fan zone for Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis, has been the center of activity in the week before the big game on Sunday, Feb. 5, and this year the Super Bowl Village Host Committee that handles the activations around the game has set out to bring some of the experience to the online audience, too.

To promote in-state vacations, the New Mexico Tourism Department this summer had residents downloading a GPS-based app and searching the state for the legendary Billy the Kid (he was played by an actor) for a shot at $10,000. Dodge challenged consumers to use clues found on YouTube to hit the road and find “the first search engine for the real world”—a.k.a. the Dodge Journey—in a month-long national campaign to increase awareness of the crossover vehicle. What made these digitally enhanced and geographically challenging scavenger hunt programs a hit?

In this monthly series, EM brings you tips and tricks from pros and experts who’ve been eating social media marketing for breakfast. So eat up, and check us out on Twitter @eventmarketer and facebook.com/eventmarketer for more.

This month, we go back to Social Media 101 to examine some of the key factors to consider when deploying a fully integrated live event and social media program. This is a broad field, and we’re approaching it with the help of two tipsters: Jim Spinello, 
senior vp-marketing communications at Chicago-based event agency rEvolution, and Blake Cahill, president at Banyan Branch, a social media agency based in Seattle.