Experience Manifesto

BEL on the Road

It was a pretty busy month for the team at BEL, as we packed the Lab and took it on the road. While we worked hard, we did get some good dinners in as well.

Remember, Experience, Experiment, Execute is not just a tagline. It's at the core of everything we do here. Give us a shout and let's see how we can work together to help you better engage your audience and drive sales. Today's consumers have many options when it comes to making purchases, we can help you stay top of mind.

Our first stop was the Shop!Marketplace in Austin, where we were part of their Experiential Zones on the show floor. Shop! was described as the Ultimate 3-Day Conversation About Retail Experience What do consumers want from retail? How can we adapt to meet those changing expectations? What role will leading brands play in retail evolution?

As the Shop! Marketplace was all about revealing the magic of in-store experiences, they offered experience zones that featured interactive experiences right on the trade show floor. Developed by industry thought leaders, the goal of these zones was to leave event participants leaving thinking differently, and more creatively, about the experience customers have while visiting the retail store. Since our motto is to be a playground with a purpose, we brought a great number of our technology experiences with us. Based on the conversations we had, we'll have some good work to do this summer!

In addition to being on the show floor, Alexandra and I also spoke at the conference on how retail is changing and what comes next. Our key points from that talk:

• Personalization: Retail stores of the future will leverage technology to provide personalized experiences to customers. This includes using data to understand customer preferences and providing tailored recommendations.
• Online & offline shopping are merging, requiring retailers to provide a unified experience for customers.
• Virtual and augmented reality will revolutionize retail, creating immersive experiences that let customers visualize products before buying.
• Consumers are increasingly demanding that brands prioritize sustainability
• Social commerce is essential for retail success, as brands must integrate it into their strategies to build relationships with customers and loyalty to their brand.
• Streamline customer interaction with retailers: Minimize friction while collecting useful data

 

 

One of the hits of the show, as we knew it would be, was the interactive sand table made by our friends at Scapio. There was always a group playing in the sand and generating great conversations about what experiences could be created using their tech.

TikTok Sand Table from David Polinchock on Vimeo.

 

The BEL team taking a moment to relax after a full day at Shop!

Next up was the NAMA Show in Atlanta, as part of their Imagination Way. It was our first time there and it did not disappoint.

Carla Balakgie, FASAE, CAE, president & CEO of NAMA said, “Over the last few years, our industry has been presented with unique opportunities to take consumer convenience to extraordinary heights. The NAMA Show 2023 will put those opportunities front and center, creating the prescription for convenience services companies to achieve soaring client satisfaction, deliver rewarding experiences and become the go-to provider for solutions where people live, work and play.”

Over 5,000 attended this year and . Imagination Way offered visitors the chance to explore hands-on exhibits replicating visionary concepts and solutions for end-consumers and public environments. BEL not only showcased our SmartKiosk technology, but brought along other technologies we felt would be of interest to the attendees.

I was actually surprised about the reaction our AR work generated there. While we frequently talk about AR as a tool for consumer experiences, many people at the show talked to us about how AR can be used as a sales too as well. A good reminder that new ideas can come from anywhere.

The BEL team is now busy with all of the necessary follow-up, but we're never too busy for visitors. Come join us at the Lab and see first-hand everything we've been showcasing on the road! If you're ready to start exploring, reach out to Alexandra Zelcer and she'll get something scheduled.

Our BEL Cafe is always stocked for guests!

Carla Balakgie, CEO of NAMA experiencing Scapio
Alexandra showing off our SmartKiosk
David showing off the AR portal

AR and the Future of Retail

At Brand Experience Lab, we're really leaning into the all of the possibilities of AR and how retailers can use the technology to create new experiences. A recent article on AR in the Business of Fashion shows just how powerful AR can be as a sales tool:

• 86 percent of US brands who use AR say it helps boost sales, helps acquire new customers and drives performance metrics
• 66 percent of end consumers are interested in using AR for help when making purchasing decisions

In addition, Threekit has these AR stats:

• AR product experiences are 200% more engaging as they deliver double the levels of engagement compared to their non AR equivalent
• 61% of consumers say they prefer retailers with AR experiences
• 71% of consumers say they would shop more often if they used AR
• 40% of consumers say they would pay more for a product that they could customize in AR
• 52% of retailers say they are not prepared to integrate AR into their retail.

The BEL Team has been at the forefront of AR tech for many years and believe that it will generate tremendous business opportunities for brands and retailers. The key is creating experiences that drive both brand objectives and consumer engagement. BEL staff is ready to help you better understand all of these emerging technologies and how you can utilize them to achieve your objectives. From our Emerging Tech Learning Labs, to our AR/VR developments to understanding what's next, BEL is your partner to make sure you're not part of the 52% unprepared for these new technologies. Check out the video below to see a test we did with Spike, one of the displays we make at Unified.

The Portal video below shows one of my favorite AR tools. We've shown examples below of both CGI and 360 video immersive experiences and the opportunities are as limitless as the technology is! You can:

• Create teaser experiences for actual trips. Do you sell fishing trips at your retail location? Now your guests can open a portal right in your store and see what it looks like!
• Stores can create endless aisles, showing as much product as you want in the AR portal. We can help you create the tools to complete the purchase right there!
• Step out to join their favorite performer right on stage!

Want to know more about we can help? Reach out to Alexandra and she'll get something scheduled. We have lots of hands-on demos here so you can Experience, Experiment and Execute.

Our AR portal tests

Bringing a retail display to life with AR from David Polinchock on Vimeo.

David led the tech team of this interactive movie experience from 2007

TikTok Sand Table from David Polinchock on Vimeo.

Building the Next Generation of Retail Metaverse

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I started doing work with virtual reality back in the early 90's and coined the expression Experiential Advertising to talk about using VR to create immersive marketing experiences.

Today we're combining that experience with the metaverse (what we used to call cyberspace) and our teams extensive experience with retail to create the next generation of retail experiences.

Members of our metaverse retail team have worked with major retailers to develop their merchandising experiences, propelling brand presence, change, profitability, and performance through the orchestration of complex sales, creative design and visual merchandising strategies. They have consistently built creative, innovative teams that drive for innovation and brand excellence creating the in-store experiences. That real world experience will be invaluable in creating the next generation of metaverse retail experiences.

Combining that with our extensive experience in building actual virtual worlds. Our team has experts in immersive technologies, software engineering, and game design. They have also worked with major fortune 500 companies and Grammy award winning musicians, actors, and creatives.

Our experience is what you need to create compelling, relevant and authentic experiences in the metaverse. Our Metaverse Learning Lab is ready to introduce you to the possibilities of the metaverse. If you're ready to start exploring, reach out to Alexandra Zelcer and she'll get something scheduled.

EXPLORE EXPERIMENT EXECUTE ENGAGE ENTERTAIN

BRAND EXPERIENCE LAB

Metaverse & AR from Brand Experience Lab on Vimeo.

Explore, Experiment, Execute

Curious as to what we do every day here at the Lab? We're excited to launch our new, overview video of the Brand Experience Lab. This video features our experienced team including Mitchell Edelman, James Ackerman, James Wiemer, Alexandra Zelcer and me and gives a great look into the selection of technology we offer such as

• Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality and the metaverse
• Shoppable live streaming
• Glasses-Free 3D
• Dynamic Interactive Displays
• Data on things
• Smart kiosks
• Virtual try-ons

and more - all at our 14,000 sq. foot space in Jersey City!

Want to know more about all of the technologies we're working with today or see these experiences first-hand? Reach out to Alexandra Zelcer and she'll get something scheduled.

AR Portals, the Metaverse and NFT's, oh my!

As you may know, I was actively involved in VR back in the 90's (see here, here and here) and I coined the phrase Experiential Advertising to talk about the use of VR as a marketing tool way back about 1993.

As I wrote back then:

For the first time, consumers will be able to enter and, more importantly, interact with a corporate marketing message. From traveling through the human body to playing a virtual football game, consumers will be able to experience almost any marketing world. Virtual reality offers advertisers the ultimate sampling opportunity and will present a clutter free event that will draw attention to any product. Experiential Advertising is an excellent opportunity to influence today's sophisticated consumer.

Now, almost 30 years later, I'm back working with the technology of today and once again exploring ways that brands and retailers can use this tech to create immersive experiences that allow the consumer to enter and interact with brand messaging. Unlike the 90's, when we needed trucks to bring the tech to the audience, today there are multiple ways for the audience to engage, from fully immersive experiences using tech like the Quest, to desktop experiences and, of course, their cell phones.

The video below shows one of my favorite AR tools, an AR portal. We've shown examples below of both CGI and 360 video immersive experiences and the opportunities are as limitless as the technology is! You can:

• Create teaser experiences for actual trips. Do you sell fishing trips at your retail location? Now your guests can open a portal right in your store and see what it looks like!
• Small stores can create endless aisles, showing as much product as you want in the AR portal. We can help you create the tools to complete the purchase right there!
• Step out to join their favorite performer right on stage!

The ideas are only limited by your imagination!

In addition to our work with AR portals, I'm also once again building fully immersive experiences, that can use both a HMD or desktop, to deliver to as wide of an audience as possible. Brands are actively building their own presence in the metaverse and our experience with VR and the tech team we have to deliver make us second to none.

We've also added the ability to deliver NFT's in our virtual worlds, allowing brands to seamlessly connect the online and offline worlds for their audience.

Want to know more about all of the technologies we're working with today or see these experiences first-hand? Reach out to Alexandra Zelcer and she'll get something scheduled.

Oreo Café at American Dream

If you know me at all, you know how I feel about Oreo's. And if you don't, well, know that there's no way I could pass up a chance to visit the first Oreo Café at American Dream. Regular Oreo's, Double Stuff, yea, I can eat them all. Knowing I was pretty close to their first Café, I grabbed the family and we went over to check it out.

I'm also a great fan of location based branding, using the physical space to bring your brand story to life. To me, this is more than just having stores, it's spaces that allow consumers to both experience your brand and create a social space at the same time. The Oreo Café works on both levels.

It's on the 3rd floor of IT'SUGAR store there, which as you can imagine, had a pretty damn great selection of sweets and candies before the Oreo Café opened. The day we were there it was actually pretty crowded with quite a long line, so sadly, I didn't get to try anything while I was there. But I'll certainly be back to try it!

As you can see by the menu above, there's a good variety of Oreo treats to experience. From the more traditional, like Oreo Cookies & Cream cheesecake, or the more fun Twist Your Oreo, where you can create your own Oreo creation. I could certainly make more than a few meals from what's offered!

Below is a bigger picture of the full space, with the giant Oreo overhead as the centerpiece of the space. There was certainly a great deal of Oreo merchandise, from cookies of course, to a full line of Oreo cookies. Seating areas around the space gave guests a place to sit and enjoy their creations. There was also a full line of clothing, etc., so you could literally wear your love of Oreo's on your sleeves.

As you can imagine, everyone was having a pretty good time here, how could they not? I'll be back at American Dream next month when their luxury wing opens and I'll make sure I have time to try the menu when I'm there.

Remember, people want to hear a great story, people want to share a great story and people want to participate in a great story. Without a great story, you might get some attention, but you'll never get engagement. Thanks to Oreo's great story, there was a lot of engagement at the Oreo Café.

They’ve Taken the Joy From Shopping

As you can see by the photos below, I recently decided it was time to make a change from the Covid beard I had grown this past year. I’ve had a beard mainly since I left Disney in about 1984, but hadn’t been clean shaven in about a decade. Because of that, the sudden shaving was really irritating my skin and I was getting a lot of razor burn.

So I decided I would try an electric razor and see if that helped. I did my research and deciding which one I wanted, started to go to stores to buy one. Holy smokers was it a frustrating experience. Shopping can be a fun, joyful experience and this was anything but. This isn’t about shaming any retailers as these experiences were pretty consistent across all of the big box retailers I visited in my quest.

Yes, I could’ve gotten what I was looking for online, but there are times when you want the immediate gratification of the purchase, plus I was still doing some comparison between different models and I wanted to do that in-store. Plus, I generally love actually shopping, being in the stores, wandering around, seeing what else I may want to buy. As I’ve written about here, stores didn’t run into trouble because of online shopping alone, online shopping was able to grow because in many cases the store experience just wasn't that good any more.

Some observations:

• Ordering-in-store. If I’m in your store, I’m not looking to buy it online. I could do that without coming into your store! I get that you could order it for me and, if I was asking for something unique, that might be really appreciated. But if I’m looking for standard stuff, that you have on display, I’m in your store to actually make a purchase right there.

• I get that theft has become an issue, especially in certain categories, like the shaving area. I can appreciate your need to limit theft, I really do. BUT, if you are going to lock things up and make me press a button to get help, then you need to have enough staff on hand to do that. Making customers wait 10 minutes to be able to start their purchase decision is 10 minutes too long. Most consumers don’t have the time or patience for that. And they certainly don’t want to feel like they’re inconveniencing your staff by asking for help to make a purchase. BTW, we have a solution to this issue, email Jim Ackerman to schedule a visit to learn more.

• It is inconceivable to me that in 2021, when retailers are so focused on consumer convenience, that equally as many stores still don’t have a proper indication of what a product actually costs! Holy smokers folks, that’s a key piece of information to the purchase decision, why are you hiding it? Also as important is to make sure the inventory is in the right place if you DO put prices. Customers can feel a lack of transparency when they take something on the shelf with a price associated to it only to get to the register and find out it’s different.
• I get it, hiring is hard these days. I mean, it’s shocking that people have finally decided that they don’t want to work for billionaire multinational corporations in low paying jobs with no benefits! I mean, who’d of thunk, right? If you’re a small, independent business, I will cut you some slack. But if you’ve been making record profits, my sympathy is gone. If I’m in your store, I expect that any associate there can tell me at least what department something is in. Far too many people I encountered could not answer very basic information about the store let alone the products. This is about customer retention and engagement! Each customer an associate “cannot” help, is a customer that leaves with a more negative image of the brand than they walked in with.
• As retailers discuss redesigning the front ends of their stores to maximize efficiency, I have a few thoughts from my experience today. I do self-checkout only when forced to do it. Unless I really only have a handful of items, it’s not usually my first choice. But watching people struggle with a shopping cart full of items, especially if they have children with them, is just painful. And, as smart as I think I am, I still have to look for the barcode every time. And we know that you didn't do this to make it a better experience for us, the consumer. No, you basically moved your labor costs from you to us. As different concepts emerge for newly designed front-ends, it’ll be interesting to see how retailers balance convenience for themselves vs the consumer. We’ll probably write about this one more in-depth, so keep your eyes peeled!

Many articles have been written about the death of the store but really the issue isn't that stores are closing, it's that bad stores are closing. My experiences yesterday really showed the challenges the physical stores are having. It takes so little for an experience to be either really good or really bad and almost all of my experiences yesterday sadly fell into the latter.

Yes, I did get what I wanted, but boy was it a painful process. I wanted to actually give a retailer my money and all I got was barriers to doing that. Shopping should be fun and for me it is. I'm spending money to get something I want or need, at the end of the experience, I should feel happy. I can tell you last night happy was the last emotion I was feeling and I actually got what I wanted. 

In the end, I got the Phillips Norelco Shaver 7500 and based on my experience shaving this morning, it worked pretty well! I got a smooth shave and my face wasn't irritated at all! Even my wife commented how smooth my face was! 

Movie Theaters Will Be Back

UPDATE

Was back at an actual movie theater this past weekend to see In the Heights. While the theater wasn't packed, it had a good crowd and we were certainly an enthusiastic audience. We had started to watch it at home on HBO Max and quite frankly, it wasn't at all the same experience as watching it in the cinema. It's not just the size of the screen, it's the entire experience. From the minute we walked in the door and got the aroma of the popcorn, to the seats and the screen/sound combination, everything is different. And the audience is far more focused on screen and the story in the cinema than certainly I am at home. It's why I am still bullish on the in-cinema experience!

Original Post

This has been a hard year for movie theaters, possibly their hardest ever. In October, Variety Had a dialogue on the future of theaters. Earlier this month, Warner Bros made news (and a few enemies) when it announced that it would release movies simultaneously on HBO Max and in-cinema on the same today. That effort kicked off yesterday with the launch of WW84.

As a little background on us as a movie family, we love movies! We went to the movies a lot, every week in the summer. I had the AMC Stubs A List and usually I made out pretty well with it. My wife & I did many a date night at the movies and my daughter and I made sure we were in the theater for every super hero movie that came out. You just have to watch those movies on a big screen!

Watching a movie in a movie theater is a completely different experience than watching something at home. At least it is for me. There’s a ritual to seeing a movie in a cinema. I only eat Sno-Caps in a movie theater, despite the fact that I can buy them other places. They get sprinkled into the popcorn to create a melted mess that’s awesome!

Seeing a movie in a theater with an audience also creates a group catharsis that almost never happens for me when watching at home. Part of the issue is the many distractions that I have at home that don’t happen in the theater. I’m constantly looking up trivia or checking emails or doing something completely unrelated at home. In the theater, I’m focused on the screen and the story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been totally engrossed in a movie in the theater and sometimes even questioned how I thought I liked the movie when watching it at home. Or thought a movie was really funny when surrounded by other people laughing and then sat bored while watching it at home.

At some point today, I will admit that we will be watching WW84 and Soul here at home with the family. But honestly, only because it’s our only way to watch it right now. The smart move would be for these companies to bring them back to the theaters when they reopen later this year. I’d certainly pay to see them on a large screen in a darkened movie theater with my popcorn and Sno-Caps, surrounded by an audience all sharing the same experience.

Plus, I can assure you that my wife will never count it as a date night if we watch a movie at home.

Incident at Fran's House

My daughter, Sydney, is a sophomore at Bucknell and like many students, she has had a tough year. Between suddenly having all of her classes go remote, the food program being really hard (at least last semester) and the lack of social experiences, it's been a hard year for her. But one thing that was awesome, is her experience at her residence hall, Fran's House.

But last week, she had an experience that no one at college should have. Her house was attacked by a group of graduating seniors, members of a fraternity that had previously lived in the building that she now lives in. As reported on the Bucknell website:

As reported to Public Safety, a group of male students approached the house at 825 Fraternity Road, which formerly housed the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity until that group's removal two years ago. In the events that ensued, these men allegedly harassed and intimidated the residents of Tower House while attempting to enter the building. We note that TKE does not formally exist at the University, is no longer a recognized student organization, and is banned from campus operations. It is clear from multiple accounts that the students violated the physical space and, far more importantly, the residents' sense of place and security. Further, it is equally clear that Bucknell Public Safety's response to the incident was lacking in myriad ways.

Fran's House RA, Tyler Luong gave more details about what happened when the campus security in a note to the President of Bucknell:

When Public Safety arrived, they laughed at the situation. President Bravman, the officers bonded with our offenders, reminiscing their college days and calling them handsome young men. President Bravman, the two officers didn't even speak to me. Neither of the two officers came up to us Fran's House residents to ask if we were okay. AND THEN THEY PROMISED TO TALK TO THE CHIEF OF PUBLIC SAFETY TO GET THEM ACCESS TO OUR HOUSE WHEN FINALS WEEK WAS OVER, SHAKING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEIR HANDS.

This was an outrageous act on the part of campus security, ignoring the victims while volunteering to do what they could to help the attackers. TKE was banned from the University and has no official presence at Bucknell at all. But that apparently didn't stop this group of people from coming back to what used to be their house and terrorizing the current residents. And make no mistake, that was their goal. To make the current residents feel unsafe in their home.

Not enough people understand what it is not to have a safe space. I certainly don't. I, like many other, live in a world where all of their spaces are safe. So we don't understand the big deal. I've seen the comments of people who said Hey, they were just being stupid kids, don't make it such a big deal. Someone on Twitter actually asked:

Ask yourself: Would you rather the world was run by these drunken louts or by the students who wrote these letters? I'd pick government-by-Neanderthal over government-by-Cultural-Revolutionaries every time.

Only someone who has lived their lives in constant safe spaces would even dare suggest that the world is better off being ruled by drunken louts over people asking to be treated equally and to have a safe space to live. It's amazing how many folks seem to think being held responsible for your actions is a cultural revolution.

Fran's House is an incredible haven. During this awful, stressful year for all students, my daughter has found a support system in Fran's House that quite frankly should serve as a model for all residential living at Bucknell. For that matter, every university should be thrilled to have a housing community like they have at Fran's House. We are grateful every day that Sydney has found her people who support and love her. 

While this attack has been terrible on so many levels, I would be remiss if I didn't commend the faculty/staff who created their own sign-up system to sit at Fran's House and let the residents know that they are loved and protected. When I arrived Friday evening, it was just so encouraging to see a dozen plus people, on the front lawn, there to protect all of the residents of Fran's House. And while I didn't stay there all night, my understanding is that there were people there throughout the night. The faculty/staff who both organized and were there should be the example for everyone on campus and they should be recognized publicly for what they did.

 

Every parent wants a safe college experience for their child. They should never have to worry about being safe in their own space and they certainly shouldn't be made to feel unsafe by campus security staff. This incident helped me to truly understand the need to have safe spaces for everyone.

 

At the end of the day, change will not come from those that need the safe spaces, but from those of us who've never even thought about needing safe spaces. Until we change, incidents like this will continue and those involved will never be held accountable for their actions.

 

I look forward to hearing what Bucknell will be doing so that my daughter never has to go through what happened last Thursday.

 

Official Bucknell response and the letter from Fran's House residents.

 

Articles about the incident can be found here, here and here among others.

 

The residents of Fran's House

CES 2021, 5G Is Here

Unless you've been on a deserted island (which honestly, might've been a good idea for the past year), you've no doubt heard of 5G. You might even have a 5G phone right now, there are a number of them on the market right now. 3G enabled the phones to start being more than a voice/text device, while 4G brought us the data opportunity that we've been living in for a few years now. Without 4G, much of what we do on our phones on a daily basis would not be possible, including watching content, maps, etc.

5G, as it becomes more widely available, will drive even more opportunities in our mobile/digital worlds. This report by Microsoft Cloud has some great stats for you to dive into! Some other 5G links:

• You can see the Verizon 5G keynote talk here.
• The CES 5G hub is here.
• Forbes Wrap-Up of 5G here.
• c|net panel on how 5G can help with Covid here.

• Location aware services/presence marketing. With the AR cloud and 5G, there will be really exciting opportunities. A few years back, I wrote about how Place & Information Will Change in an AR World to begin asking the questions about what happens when information is truly location aware.

Back in maybe 2012, I was out with a colleague looking for a place to eat. As frequently happens, you can easily get in a food rut, and we were looking for someplace new. We stood on a street corner going through Yelp, etc., looking for a restaurant that was actually across the street. Being able to place information onto the real world will become a very critical part of our futures. Think of the number of times you read an article on the best new restaurants in a certain town and how great it would be if that information could actually be overlayed onto that location the next time you visit. Or being able to see what your friends thought about a specific physical place while you were there.

But, bringing AR into our everyday lives brings up a number of critical questions:

• What's the UX for this new, AR world? Do we really want unfiltered and/or sponsored information overlaid on everything we look at? What's the new input experience for accessing this content? Will we use gestures, voice, eye movement? Take a look at what Alain Thys had to say about the future of UX and see what you think of his ideas.
• What is the backend for all of this content? Ori Inbar believes that it will be the AR Cloud that will drive the massive adoption needed to use AR as part of our every day lives. Information needs to be accessible in a very precise location for it to have value to the audience.
• Who will own this backend and be responsible for the massive amount of data that will need to flow through the system in order for it to be universally used? If I can only access data on one platform or another, that will make it hard for mass adoption to occur. I frequently say if TV had started like tech works today, and you needed a different TV set to watch each channel, there wouldn't have been a TV industry.
• Given how much of social media today has been taken over by trolls and haters, what happens to a society where that hate can live all around us, visually, in the real world? How will we clean up the AR graffiti that we know we cover the world? Who will make the distinction between art and garbage?
• How do we handle the right value exchange for the consumer in this connected, overlaid world? They know when the work we're doing is really only of benefit to us and they don't like it. We will not be able to force them to opt-in to this AR world unless they have a good reason.
• Entertainment. Sony showed off an awesome concert featuring Madison Beer during their keynote and it took me a couple of looks before I realized it was all CGI. With 5G, this kind of virtual experience will be available more widely. In fact, consumers will spend even more time on mobile devices to find the entertainment when and where they want thanks to 5G.

In addition, new forms of entertainment will be unlocked thanks to 5G. A number of years back during the Tribeca Film Festival, there was a demo of a new type of entertainment, where you had to walk around Tribeca to watch specific scenes in the places where they were actually filmed (I tried to find a link to it, but couldn't). The idea that you could walk around a city and have to visit different physical locations to experience a movie would be pretty cool.

A few years back, Sydney & I were at EPCOT Center and experienced the Kim Possible Adventure in the World Showcase. This scavenger brought Kim Possible to life and we traveled through the various countries that made up the World Showcase. Sydney & I had a great time and we saw a lot more of EPCOT than we might have otherwise.

• Sports and eSports. The in-stadium experience was being transformed before and Covid will speed that transformation along in sports like it has in every other field. From fan engagement to athlete training, 5G can impact almost all aspects of the sports experience. The NFL is testing 5G in stadiums, bringing player stats to the fan faster and in more detail than they can with existing infrastructure. Using technologies like AR, the field could come alive with all kinds of information. Inc. wrote about the use of 5G here and we're just at the beginning of where this tech can take us. You can als

VentureBeat gives some great examples here to show how the in-stadium experience will change with the addition of 5G. For example, the Sacramento Kings have built an entire virtual venue for guests to explore and see what their seats will look like. Speaking with ZDnet, Verizon VP of Network Engineering Brian Mecum said:

"We set up this 360-degree camera on the scores table, and what it allowed us to do was have the kids see the game as if they were sitting in a rare spot, and be able to put on the VR goggles ... they would be able to watch the game courtside."

From bringing the stadium experience to your home to enhancing the in-stadium experience, 5G will impact all parts of the sports experience. And this is simply building on what we already know to do. I have no doubt that we'll create immersive experiences that haven't even been considered yet as 5G is rolled out everywhere.

You can see my previous #CES 2021 posts here and here.