Show & Smell Marketing

5 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012
#SxSmell

This was an awesome SxSW session where our presenters demoed products that targeted each of the five senses. In marketing we tend to focus on sight and hearing, but our presenters managed to find a few new way to appeal to these senses.

Sight:

1 Tweet=1 Gumball
They put this device under sight, but it definitely had a sound component to it as well. At the front of the room was a gumball machine. Every time someone tweeted the session hashtag, a gumball dispensed. It was instant feedback for the presenters. Any time they brought out something really cool, the gumball machine went crazy.

One presenter said he had one at home. When he's away on business, he tweets candy to his daughter, so she knows dad is thinking about her. Awww, so sweet.

Color Change Straw
Color change anything for that matter. Why contain yourself to static images when you can incorporate items that change visually when your audience interacts with them. And, we can't forget, everyone loves fun straws.

Makerbot: 3D Printing
3D Printing, you ask, how could it be? It is, and it's being used for everything from children's make-your-own-jewelery parties to snap-together housing. The presenters proposed letting your audience upload plans for their own personally give-away trinket and printing them out for trade shows or events.
Lytro Camera
This funky-looking little handheld camera takes pictures that allow you to change the focus after the fact. Who's that blurry guy 10 feet behind the person you meant to photo? Just refocus the picture and you can see. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space. Don't ask me any more than that. As far as I'm concerned it's magic.

Tomorrow, I tell you about the sound toys, until then if you could have one of these gadgets for yourself which one would be?