How Sony Electronics’ Creative Space Tour Acts as a Continuous Feedback Loop -

Ask and they shall receive. When Sony Electronics’ user community expressed FOMO over the launch of the Alpha 7 V hybrid camera, the brand turned to what it does best—listening—and took a creator showcase held annually in New York City on tour, popping up in the local markets of its most fervent users. The 10-city Creative Space On the Road tour, featuring signature Sony experiences, kicked off Feb. 26 in San Diego, and will wrap April 30 in Boston. Stops include Albuquerque, NM; Savannah, GA; and Richmond, VA.

“We’re well known for having a community-oriented brand, and we fulfilled this request from them, which is what our brand is built around and how we got started in this space,” says Michaela Ion, editor in chief of Sony Alpha Universe, who leads content and experiential.

After putting out a survey and identifying tour stops, including some that would knock the socks off of folks who wrote in and were not expecting a brand tour to roll through, the brand spread the word on its alphauniverse.com community site, across social media and through targeted emails to its databases, including its specialty user groups and Sony Alpha Pro Support members.

“The best way for people to experience our product is by taking it out for a spin. We’re not going to sell you. We’re not going to be promoting our product and say, ‘This is the best camera you can buy, but don’t touch it,’” Ion says. “We truly believe in the power of try it and see if they like it. And they typically do, and that’s what works best for us.”

The tour activation is anchored by a customized Airstream, with fencing and other installations around it to form an enclosed footprint.

On-site, Alpha Pro Support team members greet users and provide deep product expertise, while users mingle with like-minded creators. The centerpiece of the activation is a branded Airstream trailer, which houses product showcases with large displays of the full-frame lenses and Sony shooters. Attendees are encouraged to put the lenses on their camera bodies, figure out how they work, how heavy they are, and to be as hands-on as possible. They can then head over to the gear checkout and sign up for hourlong, guided photo walks to take the products for a spin.

Back in the footprint, Sony is offering a high-value portrait studio with the brand’s artisans or collective members behind the lens, like Chris Orwig, Chris Burkhart or Brooke Shaden (a Sony Alpha Female ambassador). Attendees then use a tablet to email themselves the file. “Everything is about an experience and a touchpoint to make them feel like they’re part of the Sony family,” adds Courtney Warren, coo of Blue Pixel Creates, lead agency on the program. Surprise appearances, like filmmaker and photographer Chris Pritchard in Los Angeles, are also on the agenda. Prichard signed copies of his latest book, which the brand purchased in bulk and gave out to the community.

On the swag front, attendees can snap up a complimentary gear bag in partnership with PGY Tech that features a leather handle that the brand is custom embossing on-site. There are waters (even for visiting dogs) and snacks like custom M&M′s as an added treat. And at each stop, the brand is programming live performances by dancers, acrobats or jugglers so users have something live and active to shoot in the footprint.

Product experts take users on hour-long guided photo walks with the new Sony Alpha 7 V.

Perhaps a most important engagement for the brand is a listening booth inside the Airstream, where users can leave a video message and answer a question that they’ve prompted them with, to tell the team more about their creative dreams or what they love about the camera. The brand team has logged hundreds of messages that they’ll use in social content campaigns and internally for feedback and product development, according to Ion. And, in addition to anecdotal feedback the teams collect on-site through one-on-one conversations with users, the brand in certain cities has also arranged formal, closed-door feedback sessions for a Sony team from Tokyo to hear directly from users and non-users.

“We’re very curious people. It’s an ongoing feedback loop that goes back into the product creation. And we love it because, ultimately, that’s the whole point, right? You can’t say that you’re a community-oriented brand and not have product that is community oriented and directly responding to user needs,” Ion says.

Beyond the Creative Space program, the brand’s biggest experiential effort of the year is the annual Sony Kando Trip, a multiday experience that pops up in locations around the world, created for the community of photographers, videographers and influencers that’s intended to treat ambassadors and collaborators without any asks from the brand in return. It’s considered the hottest ticket of the year among the community. Agency: Blue Pixel Creates