How Airports Became the New Stage for Cultural Storytelling

Between novelty restaurants, themed decor and souvenir shops, marketing aimed at the traveling public can get tacky. It’s usually in service of making a buck, and it makes a lot of people’s eyes roll. That’s why the rise of experiential marketing, also known as event activation, is such a fascinating development. It represents not just a change of style but a change of mindset in the art of reaching captive consumers. At a big airport, there are a lot of consumers to reach—and new A.I. and VR technology is presenting more exciting and effective ways to reach them.

If you’ve ever found yourself in the middle of a pop-up event or an immersive exhibit built around a brand, you’ve experienced an activation. These are experiential marketing campaigns designed to catch your attention, meet you where you are and tap into live cultural moments and brands. That might sound like a gimmick, but activations are a hundred-billion-dollar global business. Brands invest in them because 91 percent of consumers leave the experience feeling more optimistic about the product or brand, and 70 percent go on to become repeat customers. In other words, they work.

Travelers are an ideal audience for event activations because travel inherently involves downtime. Marketers can earn easy wins by breaking up that boredom with simple activations, and smart brands are already doing it. Out-of-home transit ads are on the rise again, and modern ad tech is making it easier for brands to join the journey. For example, Uber (UBER) or Lyft (LYFT) passengers might get served an ad in their app, another on an in-car tablet, one on a digital rooftop screen and one wrapped around the physical car itself. These ads are built to be dynamic and interactive at every possible touchpoint. The receptivity of those in the back of a vehicle, standing in line or waiting at a bus shelter creates a lucrative opportunity for advertisers.

Executives should look to airports for the most cutting-edge examples of experiential marketing. Airports offer the time and space for brands not just to sell but to tell stories, giving consumers a deeper message they’ll remember about a retail brand, a cultural moment or the airport itself. With new technology like VR and A.I., leading airports around the world are pushing event activations to new heights.

London’s Stansted Airport, for example, was recently home to a pretty sweet VR activation. Mondelez World Travel Retail, which owns confectioner Cadbury, wrote itself into the tale of two British passions—chocolate and soccer—by setting up floor projectors and motion-sensor games in a duty-free store. Footie fans could play head-to-head and win prizes. For Super Bowl LIV, Miami International Airport intercepted arriving fans with interactive games, photo booths and giveaways for passengers, a popular brand engagement opportunity for both the NFL and the city.

At Toronto Pearson, we recently partnered with Visit Mississauga on an activation tied to Taylor Swift’s six sold-out Eras concerts in our city. Arriving passengers got friendship bracelets and a movement-responsive VR dance wall. A dance activation may not sound impactful, but we got a lot for our money. Our metrics suggest that between the news coverage and our social content and amplification, approximately 10 million people—about half of Canada’s adult population—saw something about the activation. It certainly helps that 98 percent of consumers at branded events create some sort of digital or social content to share online, expanding its reach to a whole new level.

What do we hope travelers took away from this activation? First is the halo effect—some of that Swift sheen rubbed off on our corporate reputation. Second, the message is that Canada’s busiest airport is a cultural connector—a gateway to Canada’s arts and events capital—and a vital cog in the artistic value chain.

If that second part seems too abstract, consider that the Swift concert series was expected to generate more than $280 million in direct and secondary economic impact for Toronto, much of it driven by out-of-town visitors. A Moneris Data Service analysis of credit card use concluded that foreign visitors to downtown Toronto spent 126 percent more during Swift’s first three shows than they did the week before. But it’s about more than just one concert—our region draws a billion dollars in big-name studio work each year. And Ontario’s $25 billion provincial culture industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs. These are critical messages for us to deliver because while our industry is working to become more sustainable, it also needs to demonstrate a vital economic raison d’être.

These are just a few examples of what VR event activations can deliver. Airport activations can tell an even wider range of stories when augmented with data analytics and A.I.-driven personalization. A.I. is already being used in airports in more ways than people realize: to improve security, to boost efficiency in terminals and on runways and to speed up and smooth out boarding processes. But it can bring similar benefits to experiential marketing. Imagine a chatbot that created unique brand experiences tailored to each individual traveler throughout their journey, from security to boarding. It could recommend a spot for a quick bite to eat, provide a status report on security lines or give weather reports and history primers on the traveler’s destination.

How do we get to that future? We have to be willing to experiment. At Toronto Pearson, we’re always looking for ways to leverage new technology in our terminals, whether it’s in operations or experiential marketing. Equally important is data. Airports generate a lot of it, but whatever your industry, you can level up your experiential marketing and overall business if you harness your data.

Today, airports leverage data and new technology to weave themselves into travelers’ journeys. Creating memorable experiences contributes to urban identities, brand stories and public personas. Plus, they have the built-in technological infrastructure to bring a steady chain of opportunities to brands and consumers alike—opportunities that are effective for brands and enjoyable for travelers.

To be sure, airport activations are logistically complicated and not inexpensive to curate. But as air travel becomes more digitally savvy and driven by passenger experience, activations are finding their place in the service of big-impact storytelling. Miami’s Super Bowl activation and  Toronto Pearson’s Taylor Swift event both provided memorable experiences that connected these airports directly to the city and its cultural economy. These marketing plays speak to the moment, but they also give a captive audience of inbound passengers a reason to think about coming back.

Try that with a snow globe or a fridge magnet.