Having a brand experience center is a great start to developing customer engagement. However, it’s not the whole journey. After all, your goal is to spark genuine interest and create lasting connections that eventually translate into conversions. For this to happen, visitors need to interact with your brand meaningfully. Your experience center represents the platform for such dialogue. However, you also need conversation-starters, which means keeping the conversation going, and strategic elements that immerse visitors in a way that allows you to forge deep, meaningful, and memorable brand connections.  

 

In other words, you need a visitor engagement strategy for your brand experience center.  

 

From immersive tech to personalized experiences, there are several proven ways to enable an engaging brand experience at your center. 

 

In this blog, we’ll explore some of the most innovative and effective visitor engagement strategies and moves, with handpicked examples from our work on experience centers and standout approaches from other leading brand experiences. 

 
10 strategic visitor engagement moves to try at your brand experience center 

1. Immersive Digital Displays

Immersive displays use interactive touchscreens, AR, and VR to engage visitors in the brand experience strategically. These technologies allow potential customers to visualize products in a more profound sense. Some might show customers how a product works by allowing them to experience product utilization virtually. Others might depict the inner workings of a product, or a facility to showcase excellence. These immersive experiences support purchasing, procurement, and partnership decisions. You and your customer benefit: Your customers make fully informed decisions, and you gain a platform to ensure those decisions work out in your favor.  

 

At magineu, we’ve had the opportunity to create engaging immersive exhibits at experience centers for several leading brands:  

 
Virtual Dome at the BPCL Experience Center
 

The BPCL Experience Center opened in December 2020, amidst the unprecedented challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, shared head-mounted devices were not an option. Consequently, we introduced an extraordinary alternative— a VR Dome. This not only circumvented the need for shared headsets (thereby aligning with health safety concerns of the time) but also offered an engaging brand experience where multiple team members could undertake the virtual factory tour showcased at the VR dome together. The dome, spanning a diameter of three meters, is equipped with four high-definition projectors and an advanced surround sound system, enveloping visitors in a comprehensive 360-degree refinery experience. 

 

Imagine taking a client team of decision-makers to a remote factory location to showcase your manufacturing prowess without them ever having to leave the city. 

 

-        Interactive Table at the TCL Digital Experience Zone  

 

At the TCL Digital Experience Zone, one of the many installations showcasing its products and abilities is an immersive exhibit, featuring an interactive table, 3D objects, and a floor-to-ceiling screen. This setup provides two interactive modes: visitors can either navigate content via the interactive table or engage with 3D objects on the table to trigger on-screen menus and select their viewing choices. 

 

The visitor engagement strategy in play here is to encourage self-guided exploration of the brand experience center, promoting improved connection and recall. Additional benefits include the collection of valuable engagement data. The exhibit also represents a great conversation starter: “So, what did you choose at the interactive table?” 

 

Holo pyramids at India Energy Week
 
Exhibitions offer fantastic opportunities for brands—including government bodies—to make a strong impression. At India Energy Week, we created a standout installation for the India Pavilion: a collection of holographic pyramids. These glass, pyramid-shaped displays showcased dynamic holograms on key energy themes, capturing attention and conveying complex messages through captivating visuals.  

 

Holograms go a step ahead of video in brand experience engagement because they allow you to convey three-dimensional aspects of products, and showcase the inner workings of elements.  

 

-        Multi-touch table India Energy Week  

 

Another of our most popularly explored exhibits at the India Energy Week Pavilion was the multi-touch table visitors could navigate using 3D-printed miniatures. People enjoyed the gamified means of discovering more about biofuels and other sustainable energy sources.  

 

-        Portholes at IEW 

 

Visitors also showed tremendous excitement about the portholes exhibit, where they could peer into bioscopes for an immersive view of “Life in 2030,” which showcased what the future of energy might look like. This exhibit also captured the curiosity of the honorable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, during his visit to India Energy Week.  

 

Portholes represent an ideal strategy to drive visitor engagement at your brand experience center because they have an air of mystery. This creates curiosity and a sense of FOMO that can compel visitors to interact with them. Unlike a video where one can glimpse contents on the go, a porthole’s contents are concealed until you peer through the bioscope, creating excitement, engagement, and recall.  

 

2. Personalized Experiences 

 

This involves tailoring experiences based on visitor preferences, tastes, and more.  

Every brand experience center achieves this to some extent with welcome screens that address visitors by name and job title. Still, others (like several we have worked on) tailor some of the content to align with the client discussions and deal-making surrounding the experience center visit.  

 

That said, you can do so much more to strategically personalize your visitor’s experience to elevate engagement at your brand center. Nike is a fine case in point:  

 

At a Nike flagship store in Paris (one of Nike’s House of Innovation stores) last year, visitors were invited to “remix air” as part of the launch promotions for its Air Pulse sneaker. The interactive installation used generative AI, powered by DALL·E 2, to let guests create unique visuals that embody the spirit of Air Max on a touch-enabled table. Once created, the visuals responded dynamically to high-quality soundscapes, creating an immersive, multi-sensory experience. See how it worked in this video.  

 
 

PHOTO CREDIT – Modem Works 

 

An even better brand engagement experience at Nike’s House of Innovation store in Paris came in the shape of an immersive product try-on for its FIT ADV line. The multi-sensory setup for this promotion used a 7-meter LED screen to simulate extreme weather conditions in real-time, built with Unreal Engine. As customers moved through intense climates virtually, a robotic camera captured their experience, synchronizing it with dynamic visuals (and special effects like wind). To complete the experience, customers received a QR code linked to a personalized video they could use on social media. Nike created a memorable experience with immense recall value through this installation and magnified ROI by the social sharing component of the promotion. Watch how it worked in this video.  

 

3. Gamification

 

Transforming exploration into a game through rewards, quizzes, and interactive challenges can instantly enhance visitor engagement at your brand experience center. A simple strategy for implementing this is to add a quiz after an experience or installation, where maybe the visitor answers a question to move to the next level—you can also engage multiple members of a visiting team to compete against one another.  

 

For a petro-services client located in Calgary, we created a training simulation experience where trainees would recognize gear and safety precautions for points—this not only added interactivity and engagement to the whole experience but also provided on-the-job training in a risk-free setup, allowing employees to hit the shop floor running.  

 

While gamification is already prevalent in training contexts, its application can be extended to some extent to customer-facing environments. It creates a fun and interactive experience that encourages learning and deeper connections with the brand. Read about how Nike played (and won) at gamification-led brand experience engagement at point 6 on this list.  

 

4. Live Demonstrations

 

Another strategy to create deeper visitor engagement at your brand experience center is to put the product in the customer’s hands (especially if the product is tough to resist). We’re talking about virtual product demonstrations. These aren’t the show-and-tell product presentations that people are used to (and bored of), but rather hands-on experiences that encourage customers to interact with your product.  

 

A fantastic example of this is BMW’s “M Mixed Reality” experience, which allows users to drive a real car on a virtual racetrack—this allows them to test cars in the high-speed, high-adrenaline setting of an actual racing environment.  

 

This not only showcases the car’s amazing attributes in the spotlight but also forges an unforgettable bond with the user.  

 

5. Gesture and Movement-Based Interactions

 

Incorporating motion-sensing technologies at your brand experience center can facilitate touchless, intuitive interactions that keep your visitors engaged and amazed.  

 

For example, we added a small but impactful touch to the Tata Steel Experience Center: lighting choreography that embodied their brand narrative. RFID lighting with the appearance of molten steel guided visitors through the chronology of exhibits. Our logic: Why use old-school arrows and signage when you can keep the user immersed using motion-sensor technology that deepens interaction rather than hindering it?  

 

If you noticed, Nike’s FIT ADV line promotion, which we referenced earlier, also utilizes motion sensing technology to create immersiveness. 

 

6. Augmented Reality Apps 

 

Nike is leading the charge regarding engaging brand experiences, appearing for the third time on this list with yet another mimicable example. 

 

Nike’s promotion for its All Conditions Gear (ACG) HO20 collection of products invited visitors to the House of Innovation store in NYC to interact with animated models of local wildlife and product innovation stories. In the store, Nike used a geo-fenced microsite, AR markers, and QR codes to make this happen.  

 

In a brilliant visitor engagement strategy, Nike gamified the brand experience by providing (in a very Pokemon-esque way) an interactive map and dynamic checklist that tracked user performance and progress over a series of AR-based challenges. Upon completion, participating store visitors were rewarded with a physical gift. They also received a digital AR model of the Nike “ACG Hiker” mascot as a keepsake.  

 

Scan-to-view AR brand experiences have a similarly engaging appeal to the portholes we talked about earlier. They create an aura of excitement because they’re not plainly visible, and the prospect retains control over when (and how much) they experience.  

 

7. “Choose Your Plot” Storytelling

 

Especially when diving into brand history can be vast for legacy brands—you have to consider that what matters most about pride and other deep sentiments for a brand might be less interesting to an outsider.  

 

That said, your experience center’s visitors will typically already have some connection with your brand. Consequently, it’s safe to expect some brand attributes to interest them. But which ones? The short answer—there’s no short answer. Being strategic about this aspect of your brand experience center means putting a lot of engaging stories out there and allowing your visitors to pick!  

 

We successfully achieved this form of interactive storytelling at the BPCL experience center. The 55-inch installation was a display of table anecdotes across various verticals, formatted as a digital flipbook. A structured menu gave visitors a comprehensive overview of all available stories. They could choose to read about the ones they found most intriguing. 

 

This type of installation is best suited for brand history and product catalogs. For instance, if you have a line-up of products and services that serve various sectors (or one product that achieves different goals for different sectors), this format could help visitors choose what’s most relevant to them.  

 

8. “Add-On” Technology

 

Many of the innovations on this list, including portholes and interactive storytelling, invite participative effort from your brand experience center’s visitors. You can take this further with add-ons like AR glasses, wristbands, or even docked iPads as part of the installation in question.  

 

For instance, at the BPCL experience center, we built an AR experience related to the brand’s Mumbai petroleum refinery. Visitors engage with the media assets by interacting directly with the screen on the tabletop—they use the custom-developed app on the iPad to scan and gain deeper insights into various parts of the refinery. The strategy at this brand experience center exhibit involves keeping visitors engaged through hands-on participation.  

 

9. Social Media Integration

 

Social media integrations can showcase social proof and build more of it. Installations that showcase live feeds achieve the former, while customized, brand-themed photo booths and selfie stations promote the latter. 

 

One installation at the BPCL brand experience center is a screen that continuously curates information shared on Bharat Petroleum’s social media channels, allowing visitors to see the latest information shared with customers.  

 

Other strategies to build social appeal and visitor engagement at your experience center include:  

 

        -Selfie stations: These need to be creative enough that the resulting selfies make for like-worthy posts on social channels. Consider your audience as you design this. An audience of senior corporate leadership might not sign up for something silly, for instance, even if they enjoy it off-duty and when the camera lens isn’t on them.  

 

-        Photo ops: Train your onsite team to be proactive and ensure the proper lighting. Share tips on creating images that work for business platforms like LinkedIn and industry websites 

 

10. Robots 

 

In films and other forms of literature, everyone’s read a story or seen a movie set in a future where robots are either saving or ruling over humans. Consequently, people of any age group tend to be fascinated by them. Robots represent an exciting visitor engagement strategy at your brand experience center.  

 

We’ve seen this firsthand. At India Energy Week, robots welcomed guests and showed them around the India Pavilion, causing tremendous excitement. Meanwhile, at the Dubai Expo in 2021, robots fascinated visitors and conversed with them, driving engagement, interaction, press attention, and recall value.  

 

Robots are an excellent way to develop buzz and ensure interaction. They’re also ideal when you want to make a statement about future readiness or have a vast space where navigation assistance is crucial. You should also tap into robots to address simple FAQs.  

 

It’s called an “experience” center for a reason. 

 

An experience center should do more than deliver information—it should give visitors a taste of the product, solution, or behind-the-scenes excellence. It should provide them with an experience. Not a lecture. Or a series of boring presentations.  

 

Incorporating gamified challenges, interactive displays, and hands-on demos encourages visitors to dive deeper, uncover insights, and feel rewarded for their efforts. This strategic approach makes your experience center more engaging for visitors by creating a sense of accomplishment and personal investment. When people actively participate to discover the story behind a brand, they’re more likely to connect, remember, and champion it long after they leave.  

 

From immersive digital displays to personalized tours and gamification, these approaches to brand experience engagement drive deeper engagement by blending technology with storytelling. As you explore or implement these strategies, remember that the key lies in providing unique, interactive experiences that are true to your brand’s identity.  

 

Of course, all this is easier said than done. Things can get complicated quickly. Moreover, a brand experience center and immersive exhibits represent a high-value investment. You can’t afford errors, and you need to be able to calculate ROI and tie decisions to tangible outcomes.  

 

Sounds complex? It needn’t be. We’ve created engaging brand experience centers for various brands here at magineu. Why not channel all our expertise to develop strategies that drive deep, lasting engagement for visitors at your brand experience center? Talk to us today to plan an experience center that’s a hit with visitors, press, and other stakeholders.