A general view of a New York Comic Con sign at the Javits Center on the first day of New York Comic Con, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo/Steve Luciano)
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There is a lot you can say about New York Comic Con, the massive spectacle set to bring hundreds of thousands of fans and professionals to the Javits Center on Manhattan’s west side next week, but you seldom hear people complain that there is not enough immersive entertainment going on. Nevertheless, ReedPOP, the organization that puts on the event, is working with Australian marketing firm Komo Technologies on technology designed to further engage fans in the digital domain throughout their NYCC experience.
ReedPOP VP of comics programming Kristina Rogers
Courtesy of ReedPOP
“It’s about making things fun, getting the fans engaged, and also giving them access to the information we really want them paying attention to in a way that they’re going to find it and absorb it,” said Kristina Rogers, VP of Comics Portfolio for ReedPOP and showrunner for NYCC. “There’s so much we’re trying to tell people about: four days of content, 12 hours a day. It’s a nice way to surface unique things to make sure if you’re a fan of anime, you’re seeing more anime stuff, and things like that.”
Komo promotes its solution as “an AI-powered Engagement OS that helps marketers move faster, engage deeper, and drive measurable loyalty and revenue,” with tools to “turn every interaction into a moment that moves the needle – gamified, personalized, and always-on.”
It’s easy to see how this could help jazz up a medical device conference or extend the reach of an event focused around a single brand, but at NYCC, the engagement needle is already at the highest setting, and if fans are looking for “gamification,” there are enormous booths from the world’s biggest makers of videogames clamoring for their attention right here in the real world.
Rogers says the high density of distractions at NYCC is actually an argument for using this kind of tool. She emphasized how digital technology lets fans cut through the noise and find their own path through the event that fits their interests, while giving ReedPOP valuable data about how to keep improving their fan events. which includes comic and pop culture cons, gaming events and shows for specialty fandoms in North America and the UK.
“It gives the fans a voice,” said Joel Steel, CEO of Komo Technologies. “It enables more people to ask more questions at panels. It features live trivia games, which can find the biggest fan in the room of something. NYCC the perfect customer for KOMO because there’s hundreds of passion points that we can amplify, and that’s what the platform does.”
Naturally any platform that promises personalization needs to know a little bit about the attendee to offer custom recommendations. Rogers says that fans can opt in to the tech when they register in the app, which gives ReedPOP access to information about their interests and preferences. “We can see what people’s top priorities are, if you’re favoriting comics and collectibles for example,” she said. That can help proactively filter through the voluminous NYCC program and make the event more manageable for attendees.
Steel said it is a fine line between probing for interest and engagement and being too intrusive on the user experience. “You have to be careful with how much you ask fans and consumers these days in form fields and sign-up processes, because you immediately get a large drop off when they start to understand that, oh, you just want my data,” he said. “You have to find new and more value-adding ways to get the data that you want out of the consumer so that you can still provide them a better experience. Otherwise, they’re pretty smart these days. They will catch on and they’ll see straight through it.”
Rogers agrees. “The responsibility of data capture is to make it matter. If it’s meaningful engagement, everyone wins.”
Of course every comic enthusiast would agree that with great data power comes great data responsibility. Rogers said she and ReedPOP take data security extremely seriously. ReedPOP is a subsidiary of RELX, a worldwide data company based in London that offers resources like the Lexis/Nexis legal search too. “Globally, we take a very firm line on security, and we have just finished up some final reviews to make sure KOMO is consistent with our standards.”
So will fans opt-in to this enhanced digital experience to help guide them through their customer journey at NYCC? ReedPOP, Komo and the brand partners who have signed up to amplify their reach and promote their wares through the digital experience hope the bells and whistles – which help the app deliver some impressive user engagement metrics – will make it worthwhile even an environment where consumers are more vigilant about monitoring technologies and have lots of other stuff on their minds.
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