The Future of Experiential Marketing with Joseph Aquilina

 

 

Joseph> I was so happy to hear I’d be joining the leadership team at VICE Media Group as part of a new and innovative arm of the business. VICE has always been at the forefront of what’s next in media, culture and news - pioneering new territory in bringing people together and empowering creators to push the world forward. I’m very excited to be joining a world-class team that continues to go beyond the bounds of conventional experience formats, supported by the powerful 360-degree VICE ecosystem. I’ll be operating across both VICE and Virtue, the creative agency powered by VICE, so I am fortunate to have visibility and exposure across our full network of brands including VICE, Refinery29, Pulse Studios and i-D Magazine. 

Joseph> I’ve worked in Europe, the US and, for the past six years, in the Middle East. I’d like to think I’ve come armed with a well-rounded perspective on the industry as a whole and a good cultural understanding. Our operation in MEA has a truly global footprint and we work closely with the wider business, including our VICE Insights team who are constantly making predictions, sharing points of view or conducting interesting research which allows us to keep our finger on the pulse and keep innovating for ourselves and our clients. 

We’re finding that the best results are being built from those who harness purposeful curiosity and an experimentation mindset, as both are active agents of determining what new technologies in marketing and creative industries are most useful for your brand and business. This is very much the successful start-up approach and one that many companies in MEA adopt which makes it such an exciting region to work within.   

Joseph> Brands now compete in an incredibly fragmented world where consumer attention is split across multiple channels which leaves them struggling to be relevant and visible. When building brand experiences we’re constantly questioning the ‘why?’ to ensure we’re approaching the creation process in a meaningful way for audiences. 

We want to build campaigns that challenge the status quo, offer value and empower communities by thinking more about what matters to the audience than what matters to the brand. 

The ‘why?’ enables us to use cultural understanding to shape the experiences we create for brands - making them more relevant, visible and valued by inviting their communities to engage and be active participants in forming what brands mean in the market. Our objective is to act from inside culture with the first-party knowledge we own through operating inside the heart of the media landscape, and not from the outside looking in. 

Joseph> The evolution of web3 offers a really exciting and rare moment for brands and marketers who are willing to engage within the space. Brands that observe and learn from those pioneering new opportunities are gaining insights that will enable them to build multi-dimensional experiences that matter to their consumers. There is value in being a part of this exploration phase, as we know the main drivers of brand growth and recognition are fame, salience, distinctiveness and affinity. therefore showing up in new and emerging spaces, utilising new technologies and having an influential role in shaping culture will all act as a catalyst for enriching people’s lives. 

This is particularly important in the context of experiential, where cultural and market relevance is being built upon the ability to form community brands through digital-first personalisation and anticipation. Smart brands can anticipate the unique needs and expectations of their consumers in a way that demonstrates empathy through integrated experiences, rather than merely treating them as a number or metric.

 

Joseph> I’m loving the amount of collaboration that comes with working as part of VICE Media Group. We’re constantly sharing people, ideas and resources across continents and time zones, with a shared purpose and desire to produce culture-shaping and award-winning work.

We’re also pioneering new ways of working. We opened our own ‘Metaverse HQ’, which means we can lead from the front when it comes to working inside web3. This same approach leans into the way we foresee experiential continuing to develop in both the physical and digital worlds. 

 

Joseph> We’re seeing greater investment in experiential than ever before and brands are finding their focus. There are a lot of technology-fueled experiments being used and prototypes being built, and I believe the reason for this is to ultimately increase learning and momentum inside organisations and among consumers. This curiosity, creativity and motivation have become the bedrock for what the future has to hold for experiential. The status quo has undergone review in light of emerging consumer needs and triggers that could ultimately lead to new consumer actions. If you are a brand that has participated in the above, you are likely to have built influential proof points that validate the onus on brand experience in creating long-lasting relationships with your audience. 

Joseph> It’s been a pleasure as always and I’m excited as ever for this new and exciting challenge. Our recent growth in MEA is a testament to the exceptional teams and clients we have and I’m proud to be a part of such an influential team. Stay tuned.