Showing posts with label Glastonbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glastonbury. Show all posts

Wednesday, 1 July 2015

skignz: #Glasto2015

Although skignz were not present at this years Glastonbury Festival, we had  number of friends and family attending, so to help them out and to further test the skignz technology, we ‘skignzed’ #Glasto2015.




This involved placing a range of skignz in different channels across the Glastonbury site. 

Channels included:
  • Stages
  • Toilets
  • Water Points (Drinking)
  • Emergency Contacts
  • Entrances/Exits
  • Bars
  • Food & Drink 

Please see below examples of what those skignz looked like and who they could help this years festival goers….

Like our other main project activation the same weekend for 'PRIDE in London', we managed to understand a lot more about behavioural patterns of the users, channel content and make further suggestions of how skignz can improve for future events.

Again the activity was very similar to 'PRIDE in London' in as much as those that used skignz, found it extremely helpful and used it regularly throughout the weekend. People who downloaded and used skignz, did so for on average 1.5mins every 30mins or so, using as and when it was relevant to them.



So with Approx 175,000 people attending Glastonbury this year, next year obviously provides any brand with an engaged audience for them to ‘positively enhance their experience’ and build awareness for their brand.


People don’t want to be sold too or bombarded with ads, they are far more sophisticated in their approach these days and brands need to engage them in a new, innovative and meaningful way if they are to have any long term resonance with their brand. 

A further benefits for brands engaging with skignz and activating for live events is that once people have skignz, they can then use it at other locations anywhere int he world, allowing brands to inform them of ‘brand activity’ in other locations, not just major live events but also in everyday life. 

Worth thinking about for you brand managers that are currently looking at how to engage your audiences in a more meaningful and innovative way.

If you would like to know more about Glastonbury and how you might be able to attend next year then please visit their website: www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk





As always if you want to know more about skignz, please check out our new website www.skignz.com and the usual social media channels

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

Festival Goers - It's That Time of Year Again

Yes that’s right, the time of year is now coming around again where all festival dates and tickets are released. Oh the excitement!


Just imagining which one you will be going to this year, or how many rather than just the one is a great thought, so let’s hold that for a minute and give yourself a moment to admire the madness you will be attending.


skignz done a bit of research to see what the top 10 festivals are this year that people will be attending. This is what we got:

Download Festival 2015

Wireless Festival 2015

Reading Festival 2015

Leeds Festival 2015

Calling Festival 2015

EDC Festival 2015

Creamfields Festival 2015

Glastonbury Festival 2015

V Festival 2015

Ultra Music Festival 2015

Now are you attending any of these? If you are you know how crazy, packed and fun they will be. 


However through all that fun you will want to make sure that whilst camping out, drinking and partying you will need to make sure that you can find your friends, tent, and stages and drink bars very easily, as losing any of these will defiantly be a drag to the festival experience. 

So how can you make sure that you will not happen to be in any state where you cannot find your friends, tent, and stages and drink bars? The answer is skignz

skignz is a free app that you can download to your mobile device. It uses augmented reality and GPS to allow you to place skignz wherever you are going and then easily direct yourself when you arrive at the location.


Now that probably sounds a bit confusing to you, well here is a little example of what skignz can do. 



‘Once you have downloaded the skignz app, you and your friend’s can all add each other and join together on skignz. Then you can place a ‘virtual’ skignz above your own head. Once you have done this say you are at the festival and you are all dancing away and your friend leaves to go and get a drink, now finding them again in that massive crowd is going to be a struggle. 

Well what you do is open up the skignz app on your phone, scan the crowd and there you should see a little floating skignz above your friends head telling you where they are and how far away so you are easily directed to them. How simple is that?’

With skignz, you can also pre place skignz on your online account through a Google maps interface with the free 3 skignz you get at the beginning of signing up. So say you pre placed a skignz before the festival and you placed one above the stage you want to see your favourite act playing, one above where your tent is going to be and one above where the bars are, you will easily be able to find your way to and back from the bar, to the stage where you want to be and back to the tent at the end of the night when after a few drinks finding your tent will seem to prove a little difficult! 




skignz can help make sure your festival experience is fun and you get the most out of seeing the acts you went to go see and not spent a lot of the time looking for others or getting lost. 

So why not download the app through iTunes or Google Play before you go and have a little play about. You can get used to it and then be ready to use it for the festivals you will be attending this year. The line-up for each festival looks awesome at the moment so you really don’t want to missing the acts and spending time wandering about hopelessly. 

If you would like to download the app through iTunes then please click here.

If you would like to download the app through Google Play then please click here

We hope you have a great time at your chosen festival this year and please if you manage to get any pictures of skignz then don’t hesitate to share them on our social media pages and tag us in them! 

Have fun festival goers 2015! 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on a range of the popular Social Media Channels.

Thursday, 3 July 2014

Live Events Weekend

Last weekend was a pretty big weekend for skignz as we had not one, not two but three different locations all testing out skignz. Now most people would be happy with one live event, in one location to make sure all goes well!



Not skignz, at skignz we believe in raising the bar as high as possible, pushing boundaries! Thats how we came up with skignz originally, by looking at what people really need and then looking for the right way to help them! The result is skignz! The result this weekend was skignz working without a 'hitch' at three very diverse locations across the UK.


First of all we made our debut at Glastonbury... we know plenty of aspiring bands, singers and DJs who would like to be able to 'scream and tweet' those words to the world. At Glasto' we had a specific audience we wanted to showcase skignz too and we hope those guys stayed sober enough to benefit from the technology.

That said, the skignz team also knew quite a few friends and family who were going to the what most people call 'THE best festival on the planet' so we asked a few of them, to download the app before they went and with a few text prompts and a few that must have wondered if it actually works? tried skignz and were delighted with the results so were not only sending us texts, but one or two posted 'screen grabs of skignz' live in action and a few have confessed that 'skignz' was quite the topic of conversation as the weekend progressed and no doubt the alcohol and festival atmosphere flowed!


Many thanks to all of our Glasto 2014 Guinea pigs who not only took the time to use skignz but also to share with friends and family on social media! Your help and support is greatly appreciated! Even more impressive is that none of the skignz team were at Glasto but our technology was being used by people to help them find friends, find the stages, find the entrances and even one or two were testing out a 'special channel' with a well known global spirits brand ;-), looking at how it can help brands reach and interact with their audiences in a whole new way, provide links to download/scannable offers but more on this in the near future.


The second event was also in the UK but across the south coast at Goodwood, for the world famous, Festival of Speed, where for those of you who are not that interested in Cars or Motorsport, is hosted by Earl March on his beautiful estate near .



A few members of the skignz team were present at their first FOS, and to say they were impressed is an understatement. Although the festival runs from Thursday through till Sunday, our guys visited on Friday and as they were looking at not only checking out the skignz in place for the event, they also were looking for video footage and images that can be used to help demonstrate to people what skignz is and what it can do, if they have never seen or heard of it before!


The first problem was actually getting out of the car park, only because right next to it was the 'super car carpark', getting Paul our photographer actually into the main area for the event was a challenge in itself! 

It was every little boys dream, with some wonderful cars that people visiting the event had driven to Goodwood FOS in and paid a premium to park alongside all the other 'awesome cars'.


The skignz team spent the day filming photographing the action as well as the amazing displays not only buy the cars but also, the RAF's red arrows, typhoon and other air display teams.

Couple that with all the manufacturer stands, the race up the 'Goodwood Hill' which included Sir Stirling Moss, driving one of his period racing cars in his old racing garb!

In addition their was plenty of business to discuss with the various brands on their wonderful yet very immersive and interactive stands.



Sir Stirling Moss, Mercedes

Discussing how skignz can help them with their many motor-shows across the globe, how they could use skignz as a 'product info trigger' (if you are a brand or an agency who work with brands contact us to know more about this!), how skignz could be used at motor museums/themed parks, as a way finder and content activator at events like we saw at Goodwood through to how this can be tied right through the whole sales process to the sale of the cars to customers and beyond....


 




The final instalment of the weekend moved north up to Croft -on-Tees where this weekend the latest rounds of the BTCC (British Touring Car Championships) was held alongside racing from the Ginetta, Ginetta Junior, Renault Clio Cup, Single Seater and Porsche Cups.



Again we had some of the skignz team in attendance, both for testing skignz purposes and to also catch some footage and capture some images of this type of live sports event. 


We wanted to see how skignz could be used by the live audience, there for a weekend of motor racing. We asked the race goers, what were their frustrations about live Motorsport? 

How it could improve? We showed them how skignz worked and we will publish these findings in future blog posts. But as always with live market research after a few questions to different people and a theme develops.

These themes were also very similar if not the same as feedback we have had from other live crowds at varying types of events, with varying types of people attending!

The key responses were as follows:

1. Its difficult to find your way around and know where everything is, If you have not been before and even with a map (in the programme)!

2. Meeting up with people either when you arrive or if you have split up with them during the event! Trying to get you both back together seems to be a nightmare!

3. When watching the race its hard to know who is winning? who's in what positions and what lap they are actually on?

Although none of these answers surprised us, it actually gave us immense confidence that what we have developed with skignz, not only addresses one of these key problems, but actually could address all three! 

All with a free app on peoples smartphone!

Everybody we spoke to had a smart phone and with the exception of a handful, ALL could have downloaded skignz and used it that very weekend, if only at this point to find their friends! We were not sure the attendance for the weekend end but if everyone we spoke to asked their friends to download the app and so on! we could have helped a significant amount of people find each other! That alone we find very cool and very humbling.



So as the weekend comes to a close, we have seen some wonderful sights, the red arrows perform during our lunch, an RAF typhoon amaze us during afternoon tea...


...see Sir Stirling Moss gracefully race up the Goodwood Hill, whilst a racing driver in a Brand New Alpha Romeo 5C totally write it off into a wall of hay bails. 

We have seen BMW eBay driver Colin Turkington win two of the three BTCC rounds at Croft and the thrills and spills of the smashes, scrapes and crashes in all the races, but whilst all this was going on, people were enjoying one of the greatest shows on earth at Glasto' 2014, watching Calvin Harris play the skignz tune of this 'Summer' using skignz to find their way around, and even the exits to find their way home!


Thank you to those who answered our questions, tested our technology and to the skignz team for a wonderful weekend of activity! who knows maybe next year 'every live event' will be using skignz to help people find each other, find their way around and discover brands who want to speak to them in a whole new way!
So if anything the weekend of 26th-29th June 2014 could (we hope it will) turnout to be the 1st time skignz was discovered by the select few, lets hope they share it with their friends and family, so as the summer of 2014 progress, more people can download skignz and 'never get lost in a crowd again!'

If you would like to know more about the key events from the weekend then please use the following links:

Goodwood Festival of Speed: 
http://grrc.goodwood.com/section/festival-of-speed/#/0

Glastonbury Festival: http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk

MSA British Touring Car Championships: http://www.btcc.net




If you would like to know more about how to download your own skignz app or how skignz could interact with your brands audiences in a whole new way, then please visit www.skignz.com or follow us on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn or take a look at our YouTUbe channel for some of our latest content showcasing skignz use in varying settings, sectors and places.


Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Festivals and Outdoor Events- From a Brands Perspective!

Now this one is for all of you brands out there. Every brand and company wants themselves to differ from one another in some way. But what can you have before anyone else does and that meets every customer’s needs and wants. 

It is not always about just advertising to customers, you need to engage with them on a different level. Festivals and outdoor events are a massive experience to people every year as thousands and thousands attend festivals and want to experience different kinds of acts and see them live. However they need to have a full great experience no matter what they do while they are there and have an overall fulfilled time rather than just enjoy seeing the acts live that they enjoy.


This could be ANY Festival in full flow - Standard!

Now ANY Festival in full flow - But Informatively Enhanced!
Let me just tell you and give you a short illustration of what a brand would do from their perspective and how they would go about giving people that best experience they can get at a festival or outside event.

"Hi my name is Sam. I am the manager of a large sports company with HQ in London. I am just giving you an example of what I think should be done to enhance a person’s experience at an outdoor event. Now we know ourselves, well I do anyway that when we go to a festival it can be a right pain when you get lost or you don’t know where to go, when you don’t know where your car is or where your tent is, or even the biggest one losing your friends when you leave them to go get a drink or go to the toilet.

Now I know myself that I want to help people improve on this and come to some solution for it. Look at it from your own perspective first, you're at a festival with your friends. Imagine when you need to find your tent when you go back to it, there are thousands of people with their different coloured tents up so it isn't going to be easy to find yours now is it. 


Could you find your friend(s) amongst this mass crowd?
Its the same at nearly EVERY Live Event you will attend!
That's just a small problem. When you get settled into the event and go to see your favourite act on stage, you will need a drink, some food and the toilet. Making more than one journey is just a pain so you will do it all in one time. However where are those toilets at, including the food and even where to get the drinks from; the main part of your festival experience – drinking!

I want my brand to help others at the festival not just advertise to them. Now advertising at a festival is big for a brand as everyone sees it and it increases their awareness of the brand. However that is just advertising to people, it isn't helping them or engaging with them at a personal level creating a relationship to benefit them and benefit the brand also. 

When you think about it should always be a two way street. When brands advertise they need to make sure that whatever they do or how they are doing it is benefiting the customer and person themselves and also benefiting the brand at the same time. Providing a two way street, is the best form of advertising as it creates a great relationship between two parties – the brand and the customer.

Now when I am thinking about it and how I can help people at a festival to not get lost and to find their friends and their tent when it comes to it I need something really spectacular to really expose my brand at the same time as providing help to others.

That’s why I now tell you about skignz. I have come across this great new technology that puts 'virtual signs in the sky' for people to view and use to navigate where they are going. Now you might think, well how is this going to help a person attending a festival or an outdoor event yet also improve a brand's exposure at the same time...?

Well let me tell you. skignz will help a person at a festival or outdoor event as, when they go to the toilet and leave their friends or to even go to get some food, it will be very hard to even find where each place is at this massive event filled with thousands of people. Then when they try to go back and find where they were previously situated, will be even more difficult in the massive crowd. 


Find your friends in a crowd! Simple as that!
Well if that person and their group of friends who they are attending the event with (they can download the skignz app for free, before they attend the event) they can each set up and place a skign above their head (using their phone GPS/Wifi signal  to keep it located above them!)

Now when a person wanders away from the group, they will be able to just scan the crowd with their mobile (through the skignz App) and they will see that personalised 'virtual sign in the sky' above their friends head; now then can easily find their way back to them without no hassle.

That sounds so simple to use and best of all it is free for everyone to download. Other public skignz can also be set up around the event so that whoever does have the app for when they attend the event they will easily be able to find the toilet, food and drinks service sections so that they won't have to waste time searching about and getting lost then missing the act that they most wished to see at the festival. 


These branded/sponsored skignz provide the audience with Real Time Live Information!
Now you know how this will benefit a person at a festival or outdoor event you may think well how will it benefit me by using another company’s technology and enhance the acknowledgement of my brand. 


Well let me tell you how...

The best place to get your brand noticed by a wide range of audience is at these huge events where there are thousands of people who will take notice of your brand there.

Then in the future they will associate the skignz technology or that particular festival / outdoor event with your brand. Now through that brand noticing that a person needs help and how can they go the extra mile to help them shows that customer, that you are taking care of them no matter where they are and seeing to their every needs and wants in that very moment. 

Through getting my brand associated with this new piece of great technology, whenever anyone uses it, they will know that my brand is associated with this and just how much it helped them at that festival/outdoor event. 

Now let's just think of the recognition that has created for my brand! Not just at that event but into the future too. It has also provided that company and piece of technology with wider recognition. Everyone will also be more the wiser about that company and what it offers.

Now through my brand, using the new innovative skignz technology, this doesn't just help the brand at a festival, my brand can use this to create an advantage on any of my competitors who do not use skignz – We will be the only ones! It can always be used to enhance a customer’s experience no matter when, not just at the initial festival.


I read once a customer’s point of view in a statement that said: “A company that takes the time to create a more personal relationship with me instantly gets me attention and my loyalty to that brand, as they are not just advertising to me, they are looking to help me in any way they can and take time to create that personal relationship with me”.

Well that everyone, is what my brand is all about and what skignz is all about. So have a think about it and just how much using skignz can help benefit your brand and help you pass on that benefit to your customer’s, thus creating that more personal relationship which is what we are all looking to achieve"

If you would like to read more on skignz if you are thinking about wanting this great technology within your company and use it to enhance your brand, then please follow the links below and have a read of the company; Even watch a few videos to see just how great and innovative the technology is!

www.youtube.com/skignz