One may think that being locked up is a thing of nightmares, well now it’s the new cool. Sweeping en-vogue industry events like the South By Southwest (SXSW) Conference, the Escape Room is the attraction getting everyone talking. And it’s not only the participants, since this newfangled love of immersive experience is opening a door to innovative marketing opportunities, too.
What precisely is definitely an Escape Room? You could ask. Picture this – you are in a locked room. You’ve a few random https://la.mazerooms.com/escape-rooms-los-angeles/ clues and you don’t know getting out. You might think this really is just another plot from one of the Saw film franchises nonetheless it is in fact the makings of an Escape Room experience. This ‘craze’ involves a group all the way to 12 players – depending on where you book – who’ve to use physical and mental agility to unlock door after door, moving from room to room frantically determining cryptic clues. The catch? You’ve just 60 minutes to break free.
Needless to say this is simply not a brand new concept but after years of virtual reality parading since the cool big brother on earth of immersive experiences, escape rooms have been confidently working through the experiential ranks to take the title of legitimately ‘wow’ ;.Unsurprisingly, sharp marketers have tracked this and are actually finding innovative ways to maximise the exposure to the experience. The ‘tie-in’ style of marketing agreement appears to be the ruling formula for this.
Famous examples to date include Disney hosting a pop-up escape experience associated with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The Escape Game in Austin Texas (America’s most widely used escape experience) being bought out by FOX with time for the launch of a brand new group of Prison Break, and HBO setting up a multi-room installation themed around Game of Thrones, Veep, and Silicon Valley. Smart.
Although this form of marketing can be nothing new alone, what makes it successful is that the merchandise marry perfectly with the knowledge, and we realize that people are, significantly more than ever, compelled to pay their money on ‘doing’ rather than through traditional advertising methods, i.e. simply ‘watching’ ;.
This trend could be linked back once again to the world of game titles and eSports. Marketers would launch games then host ‘real world’ experiences: events, competitions and interactions that complimented the gameplay and managed to get tangible. This is where clever partnering and collaboration comes in. The perfect partnership here could be founded on a mutually beneficial commercial relationship where the escape room company and the IP (or copyright) owners interact to garner maximum exposure and expand the consumer base, prompting a ‘win: win’ arrangement.
Escape 60 in Brazil pulled off a blinding example of the in 2015 when they linked up with Ubisoft, the creators of fantasy behemoth Assassin’s Creed, to have in front of the game and create an escape room orchestrated round the release of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. America’s Escape Game, Marriott Vacations Worldwide and Vistana Signature Experiences also collaborated to create the worlds of hospitality and entertainment together, that is now a growing trend. Alex Reece, CEO of America’s Escape Game, commented within an interview at the time (October 2016), “We see a very bright future of incorporating escape rooms powered by America’s Escape Game in multiple Vistana locations in the coming months and years. There’s without doubt this powerful alliance brings the exploding escape room experience to numerous enthusiasts through the world.”