Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
Social media has long been criticised for its limited reach. Ironic, when you think that over a billion people now use Facebook. But the number of likes, shares and comments that a piece of content receives on a Facebook page is often a proportionately smaller number when compared with the eyeballs on a traditional TV ad or the circulation of a national newspaper.
One of the issues that drives this mentality is the way in which brands use social media – with a primary focus on engagement. This isn’t to say that engagement is an unworthy objective. It’s just that many social channels provide an equally important function – social proof. Regardless of the data that supports it, common sense tells us that we’re far more likely to trust a brand, buy a product or visit an attraction if it’s recommended by a friend.
E-commerce brands have long cottoned on to this reality, and it’s rare to find a successful e-shop that doesn’t allow product reviews, social shares or likes. But why has one industry embraced this tactic, while others fail to maximise its benefit? The answer to that is simple – technology.
While a website can so easily be integrated with social channels, businesses that sell experiences find technology a far more challenging and expensive barrier. For the attractions industry, this couldn’t be more true.
However, this position also allows for a much more exciting opportunity – to bridge the gap between the real world and social media. If carried out in the right manner, social channels can begin to drive reach far beyond the expectations of a normal campaign and can ensure higher engagement levels at the moment it matters most.
Let’s take a look at some of the technologies available in today’s ever-innovative social space.
Facedeals Facedeals uses state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers with deals. When walking into a venue with Facedeals, a camera picks up the person’s facial features, initially taken from photos on Facebook, and sends them a message with a deal, often related to their profile interests. In essence, this is the next step in Facebook check-ins.
Facebook check-ins is a powerful mechanism for businesses to deliver discounts to loyal customers, yet few businesses have realised it. Try it yourself. A search for deals in your local area will bring back a limited number of results. More often than not, the incentives for a check-in aren’t nearly enticing enough for us to take the time.
This introduces a concept that real life and social integration can benefit from. Typically, for a user to engage with brands on a social platform, it must either be highly convenient or, better yet, incentivised.
When physically at an attraction, one minute of fame is more than likely a good enough reason to check-in.
Think about this. If a Facebook user visiting your attraction sees a big digital screen at the entrance, welcoming those individuals who’ve checked-in, the incentive to appear on the screen is more than likely worth the simple action. It’s easy, it’s fun, and there is next to no barrier to entry.
How does your business benefit? Social proof and reach. Suddenly, the number of check-ins at your venue increases. Visitors’ friends see the check-in on Facebook, no doubt interact with it, and most likely seriously consider visiting themselves.
For just a limited up front investment, you’ll be able to reach out to a serious number of people in what really is the best form of advertising – that of personal recommendation.
Live Twitter Activations While not one specific technology, a number of brands have taken advantage of a very simple technique. By sending a tweet with a specific handle included, individuals can activate any number of real life technologies. Take a simple vending machine. With the right application of technology and an Internet connection, sending a simple tweet can prompt a vending machine to dispense a drink or snack. BOS Ice Tea is a South African brand that has done just that, sampling their products on the streets of Cape Town via a simple hashtag.
Their goal was simple. They knew that if people tried their product, they would likely want to repurchase. The vending machine was eye catching and drew the crowds, but with Twitter as the activation tool, amplification became easy, spreading the name of the brand to those unable to taste it for themselves. While an obvious gimmick, BOS successfully brought the social space into the real world.
Poken Pokens are simple USB devices that use near field communication (NFC) to allow a variety of social actions. Touch two Pokens together, and you can share contact details, exchange social profiles or link up to a brand’s social platforms, all in the space of a few seconds.
With such a simple device, event visitors can immediately become fans of a brand and meet new people. It also promotes longevity, by creating an online community around an event, enabling participants to connect with their new contacts and explore the information collected on a custom branded online interface created for your event.
You can also use the Poken Game Pack to create interactive competitions and motivate participants to take specific actions in alignment with your event objectives.
As with most of these gadgets, Pokens provide a form of analytics to help measure success. You have access to the number of contact exchanges made between participants and the exact amount of digital materials collected at your event.
Instacube Originally funded by Kickstarter, the Instacube is a digital photo frame that pulls photos from any hashtag or user name from Instagram. While far from a game changer for brands, it does highlight just how simple the display of social photos can be. Consider this in a larger context, a panel of screens rotating between pictures of customers on the day they visit an event or attraction.
Customers are suddenly given a reason to include your unique hashtag in their social stream. Their friends will be exposed to photos of your venue and the hashtag itself could begin trending. While the novelty factor will draw the crowds, the biggest benefit to any brand is, of course, reach.
Find the right technology So how do brands embrace technology and leverage social channels to extend reach? All of the technologies mentioned utilise two primary tactics. Firstly, they successfully bring social media into the real world. A common mistake made by brands is the assumption that consumers see a difference between the two. In reality, social media is part of their world and its use is simply another way to communicate.
Secondly, each device gives the end user an incentive to use their social channels in a particular way. This is extremely important as it not only encourages use, but a use is dictated by the brand’s aims. And, if developed in the right manner, can extend reach and awareness on a significant level.
We all live in a digitally enabled world, where the lines between on and offline are becoming increasingly blurred. By proactively trying to blur them completely, brands don’t need to rely on customers finding their social channel and liking, sharing or engaging with their content. Until they have an explicit reason to, most customers will happily focus on the brands they have more frequent contact with. For an attractions business, there must be no barrier.
By leveraging social check-ins, likes and shares through technology, you ensure that your customers will share their visit with friends. On Facebook specifically, this has two enormous benefits. Firstly, EdgeRank ensures Facebook users only see what’s most relevant to them, based on how they engage with friends or brands. As a result, users will see far more interactions with a brand through the people they engage with daily, over original posts made by the brand itself. With people sharing their own pictures and check-ins, but ensuring that your brand is associated to it, we don’t need to rely on a continuous feed of unique and interesting social content. As brands, we can achieve the ultimate desire of user-generated content.
Secondly, and to the first objective raised in this article, technology drives reach. It amplifies what your customers are already doing online and aligns it with your brand’s objectives. Only then can we begin to see the big numbers traditional advertisers love to talk about.
To deliver a cohesive social strategy using real world technology, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would encourage them to interact on their chosen channels? How can this be leveraged and what are the technologies you need to make it a reality?
Fundamentally, if you apply the rule, ‘keep it easy, keep it fun’, you will find that social media can go far beyond the impact of more traditional channels.
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
Profile: Joe Schott
The COO of Disneyland Paris talks about
the park's new immersive Ratatouille
dark ride, which is slated to open in 2014,
and how the park has evolved from an
American theme park to a European one
Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
The BOS Ice Tea team trialed its product on the streets by tweeting a hashtag that activated a vending machine and dispensed a free drink
(Above and left) the BOS Ice Tea team trialed its product on the streets by tweeting a hashtag that activated a vending machine and dispensed a free drink
With Poken, visitors can instantly become a brand fan and meet new people
Instacube: An attraction could display a screen of rotating images of customers on the day they visit the site
In the fast-paced world of fitness and wellness, where high-intensity workouts push us to
our limits and the sweat pours, the importance of efficient recovery cannot be overstated. [more...]
Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
Social media has long been criticised for its limited reach. Ironic, when you think that over a billion people now use Facebook. But the number of likes, shares and comments that a piece of content receives on a Facebook page is often a proportionately smaller number when compared with the eyeballs on a traditional TV ad or the circulation of a national newspaper.
One of the issues that drives this mentality is the way in which brands use social media – with a primary focus on engagement. This isn’t to say that engagement is an unworthy objective. It’s just that many social channels provide an equally important function – social proof. Regardless of the data that supports it, common sense tells us that we’re far more likely to trust a brand, buy a product or visit an attraction if it’s recommended by a friend.
E-commerce brands have long cottoned on to this reality, and it’s rare to find a successful e-shop that doesn’t allow product reviews, social shares or likes. But why has one industry embraced this tactic, while others fail to maximise its benefit? The answer to that is simple – technology.
While a website can so easily be integrated with social channels, businesses that sell experiences find technology a far more challenging and expensive barrier. For the attractions industry, this couldn’t be more true.
However, this position also allows for a much more exciting opportunity – to bridge the gap between the real world and social media. If carried out in the right manner, social channels can begin to drive reach far beyond the expectations of a normal campaign and can ensure higher engagement levels at the moment it matters most.
Let’s take a look at some of the technologies available in today’s ever-innovative social space.
Facedeals Facedeals uses state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers with deals. When walking into a venue with Facedeals, a camera picks up the person’s facial features, initially taken from photos on Facebook, and sends them a message with a deal, often related to their profile interests. In essence, this is the next step in Facebook check-ins.
Facebook check-ins is a powerful mechanism for businesses to deliver discounts to loyal customers, yet few businesses have realised it. Try it yourself. A search for deals in your local area will bring back a limited number of results. More often than not, the incentives for a check-in aren’t nearly enticing enough for us to take the time.
This introduces a concept that real life and social integration can benefit from. Typically, for a user to engage with brands on a social platform, it must either be highly convenient or, better yet, incentivised.
When physically at an attraction, one minute of fame is more than likely a good enough reason to check-in.
Think about this. If a Facebook user visiting your attraction sees a big digital screen at the entrance, welcoming those individuals who’ve checked-in, the incentive to appear on the screen is more than likely worth the simple action. It’s easy, it’s fun, and there is next to no barrier to entry.
How does your business benefit? Social proof and reach. Suddenly, the number of check-ins at your venue increases. Visitors’ friends see the check-in on Facebook, no doubt interact with it, and most likely seriously consider visiting themselves.
For just a limited up front investment, you’ll be able to reach out to a serious number of people in what really is the best form of advertising – that of personal recommendation.
Live Twitter Activations While not one specific technology, a number of brands have taken advantage of a very simple technique. By sending a tweet with a specific handle included, individuals can activate any number of real life technologies. Take a simple vending machine. With the right application of technology and an Internet connection, sending a simple tweet can prompt a vending machine to dispense a drink or snack. BOS Ice Tea is a South African brand that has done just that, sampling their products on the streets of Cape Town via a simple hashtag.
Their goal was simple. They knew that if people tried their product, they would likely want to repurchase. The vending machine was eye catching and drew the crowds, but with Twitter as the activation tool, amplification became easy, spreading the name of the brand to those unable to taste it for themselves. While an obvious gimmick, BOS successfully brought the social space into the real world.
Poken Pokens are simple USB devices that use near field communication (NFC) to allow a variety of social actions. Touch two Pokens together, and you can share contact details, exchange social profiles or link up to a brand’s social platforms, all in the space of a few seconds.
With such a simple device, event visitors can immediately become fans of a brand and meet new people. It also promotes longevity, by creating an online community around an event, enabling participants to connect with their new contacts and explore the information collected on a custom branded online interface created for your event.
You can also use the Poken Game Pack to create interactive competitions and motivate participants to take specific actions in alignment with your event objectives.
As with most of these gadgets, Pokens provide a form of analytics to help measure success. You have access to the number of contact exchanges made between participants and the exact amount of digital materials collected at your event.
Instacube Originally funded by Kickstarter, the Instacube is a digital photo frame that pulls photos from any hashtag or user name from Instagram. While far from a game changer for brands, it does highlight just how simple the display of social photos can be. Consider this in a larger context, a panel of screens rotating between pictures of customers on the day they visit an event or attraction.
Customers are suddenly given a reason to include your unique hashtag in their social stream. Their friends will be exposed to photos of your venue and the hashtag itself could begin trending. While the novelty factor will draw the crowds, the biggest benefit to any brand is, of course, reach.
Find the right technology So how do brands embrace technology and leverage social channels to extend reach? All of the technologies mentioned utilise two primary tactics. Firstly, they successfully bring social media into the real world. A common mistake made by brands is the assumption that consumers see a difference between the two. In reality, social media is part of their world and its use is simply another way to communicate.
Secondly, each device gives the end user an incentive to use their social channels in a particular way. This is extremely important as it not only encourages use, but a use is dictated by the brand’s aims. And, if developed in the right manner, can extend reach and awareness on a significant level.
We all live in a digitally enabled world, where the lines between on and offline are becoming increasingly blurred. By proactively trying to blur them completely, brands don’t need to rely on customers finding their social channel and liking, sharing or engaging with their content. Until they have an explicit reason to, most customers will happily focus on the brands they have more frequent contact with. For an attractions business, there must be no barrier.
By leveraging social check-ins, likes and shares through technology, you ensure that your customers will share their visit with friends. On Facebook specifically, this has two enormous benefits. Firstly, EdgeRank ensures Facebook users only see what’s most relevant to them, based on how they engage with friends or brands. As a result, users will see far more interactions with a brand through the people they engage with daily, over original posts made by the brand itself. With people sharing their own pictures and check-ins, but ensuring that your brand is associated to it, we don’t need to rely on a continuous feed of unique and interesting social content. As brands, we can achieve the ultimate desire of user-generated content.
Secondly, and to the first objective raised in this article, technology drives reach. It amplifies what your customers are already doing online and aligns it with your brand’s objectives. Only then can we begin to see the big numbers traditional advertisers love to talk about.
To deliver a cohesive social strategy using real world technology, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would encourage them to interact on their chosen channels? How can this be leveraged and what are the technologies you need to make it a reality?
Fundamentally, if you apply the rule, ‘keep it easy, keep it fun’, you will find that social media can go far beyond the impact of more traditional channels.
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
Profile: Joe Schott
The COO of Disneyland Paris talks about
the park's new immersive Ratatouille
dark ride, which is slated to open in 2014,
and how the park has evolved from an
American theme park to a European one
Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
Facedeals use state-of-the-art facial recognition software to reward regular customers and visitors with special deals
The BOS Ice Tea team trialed its product on the streets by tweeting a hashtag that activated a vending machine and dispensed a free drink
(Above and left) the BOS Ice Tea team trialed its product on the streets by tweeting a hashtag that activated a vending machine and dispensed a free drink
With Poken, visitors can instantly become a brand fan and meet new people
Instacube: An attraction could display a screen of rotating images of customers on the day they visit the site
Global Wellness Day (GWD) will mark its 15th anniversary on Saturday 13 June 2026, with the
theme: #JoyMagenta – a celebration of the healing qualities of simple gestures and activities
that spark joy.
Global luxury hospitality brand, Six Senses, has partnered with longevity healthcare provider,
HUM2N, to launch a clinic at Six Senses London, at The Whiteley.
As part of its first hotel partnership, Mayrlife – the medical health resort company known for its
site in Altaussee, Austria – has launched a day clinic at the Rosewood Vienna.
Premium London health club, KX Chelsea, will imminently unveil its most significant
redevelopment since its launch in 2002 to create an integrated wellness model combining
training, recovery and relaxation.
Rosewood Le Guanahani St Barth, on the northeast coast of Saint Barthélemy in the French
West Indies, is offering a programme of ocean-inspired yoga classes between 8-14 June to
celebrate Global Wellness Day (GWD).
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
The Ritz-Carlton, Langkawi, in Malaysia, has revealed a schedule for Global Wellness Day
(GWD) that includes guided rainforest walks, mindful movement and guided coastal meditation
experiences.
Longevitix, a clinical platform for preventive and longevity medicine, has launched its AI-
powered intelligence system to help physicians deliver continuous, personalised longevity-
focused care at scale.
Atmantan Wellness Centre, an integrative wellness destination in Mulshi, near Pune in India, is
expanding its portfolio by adding a new centre in Hyderabad that will launch between 2028 and
2029.
A recent survey by the UK Spa Association (UKSA) into the industry’s approach to cancer care
has revealed that almost half of participating respondents (46 per cent) are unaware that
cancer is a disability and guests with a cancer diagnosis must be given
In the fast-paced world of fitness and wellness, where high-intensity workouts push us to
our limits and the sweat pours, the importance of efficient recovery cannot be overstated. [more...]
