Increasing Trade Show Booth Engagement 400% with Award-Winning Application

Originally published on the VR/AR Association (VRARA) blog, July 1, 2019.

Through successful partnership with Kaon Interactive at recent tradeshows, CenturyLink was able to generate a 400% increase in event booth engagement versus the previous year – within a smaller, more cost-effective booth space.

Looking to elevate event technologies and techniques, Becky Kelly, director of solutions marketing strategy at CenturyLink, decided to turn to a more innovative and engaging solution in an effort to generate higher-qualified booth leads.

“We wanted to create a lasting experience for show attendees without spending exorbitant amounts of money. We wanted to achieve something meaningful that we could grow for reuse. I wanted to create a theme we could tie things around to effectively tell our story and then use those best practices for future ones,” Becky said.

After establishing its message of “Why Milliseconds Matter,” the Kaon Interactive and CenturyLink team began developing the award-winning, visually engaging, virtual reality experience that would effectively convey this critical message with two goals in mind. The first, to empower the CenturyLink booth staff to engage with tradeshow attendees faster. The second, to have more productive interactions with attendees so they understand that CenturyLink is more than just a phone company.

Using the Lenovo Mirage Solo^® standalone VR headset with Google Daydream, booth attendees were able to immerse themselves in a familiar coffeeshop (and other relatable venues) and experience how CenturyLink touch points enable important data to travel, within milliseconds, to execute daily transactions and activities. Because it was developed on Kaon’s High Velocity Marketing Platform^®, CenturyLink has the ability to add scenarios and solutions to the application, evolving it for future trade shows. The platform also enabled the deployment of the application on the web, smartphones, touch screens, laptops, and mobile tablets, in non-immersive VR, to be used by customers and the sales team alike.

“There is a huge cost and time efficiency in not having to recreate this interactive content from scratch for future sales and marketing programs and devices,” Becky stated. “We want to tell our story everywhere our buyers are, and Kaon’s platform affords us the ability to do that. Not only did Kaon help us push the envelope, they gave us an innovative technology platform that allows us to break new ground and raise the bar.”

This CenturyLink application was recently selected from more than 6,000 entries, from companies and agencies of all sizes, to win a 2019 Communicator Award of Distinction in the Marketing Effectiveness B2B Campaign category. Read the full case study, or schedule a demo, to learn more.