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How Brands Are Using Live-Streaming Apps to Connect With Consumers

Find out how some brands are using Periscope and Meerkat to engage customers.

Meerkat (left) and Periscope both allow users to instantly broadcast directly from their mobile devices.
Meerkat (left) and Periscope both allow users to instantly broadcast directly from their mobile devices.
Photos: Courtesy of apps

Live-streaming apps Meerkat and Periscope generated huge buzz when they launched earlier this year, and since then dozens of brands have been testing them as a new way to engage with customers. The apps, both now available for iOS and Android, allow users to instantly broadcast directly from their mobile devices, without the need for any cables or equipment. The live streams can be viewed by anyone, either in the apps or on the Web, and viewers can submit comments and questions that the host can answer in real time.

After observing Meerkat’s popularity at South by Southwest in mid-March, Southwest Airlines tried its first stream on March 25 to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at baggage handling and flight preparation for a flight departing from Nashville. A few weeks later, the airline used Periscope, an app owned by Twitter, to broadcast the unveiling of its Missouri One Boeing 737 and an interview with the chief pilot.

“We love live-streaming because it’s very unadulterated. It allows us in real time to show the authenticity around Southwest’s culture,” says Brooks Thomas, Southwest Airlines’ social business advisor. “If I’m able to go down on the ramp and show employees working flights in real time, taking customer feedback and immediately incorporating it into questions [for the employees] and getting the answers, I think there’s an appreciation our customers have for that.” Thomas says the streams have also become a recruiting tool, allowing the airline to share up-to-date information about open positions, and the company plans to continue to use both apps for future events.

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Ed Gala, global head of events and sponsorships for Philips, first learned about Meerkat at SXSW when a customer asked if she could use the app to show the Philips booth to staff back in her office. “We engaged in a live-streamed exhibit tour using Meerkat. I was so impressed with the fact that we could take our message out and show in real time all the exciting things happening in the exhibit,” he says. Now Gala is considering how to incorporate live-streaming into his strategy for future events. He already has plans to use it in September in Berlin at IFA, an international trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, to share the Philips’ press event and booth tours with a worldwide audience. “We do so much message development and create marketing campaigns and materials associated with these shows, so it’s a great opportunity to move that outside the walls of the trade show itself to extend the investment,” Gala says.

As can be the case with any crowdsourced content, video streams on Periscope and Meerkat can be unpolished—without a tripod the video is naturally shaky—but Gala believes audiences accept those limitations. “The appetite and the suitability for homegrown, user-generated content is high now and only growing. This won’t necessarily replace the professional live-streaming capabilities, but it dramatically broadens them.”

Red Bull, known as an early adopter of emerging social platforms, became one of the first brands to use Meerkat when it provided a live stream from the Red Bull Double Pipe competition in early March. A few weeks later it used Periscope to provide behind-the-scenes access from the Red Bull Guest House at Miami Music Week. In June, the beverage brand again used Periscope to provide backstage views from Bonnaroo on the Red Bull TV Livestream. Red Bull’s director of communications, Patrice Radden, says, “Engaging consumers through personal interactions, event participation, and word of mouth has always been a part of Red Bull’s DNA. We have always had a conversation with our consumers, and the incorporation of social media in recent years was a natural progression and has only amplified our engagement.”

While mobile live-streaming has been around for years, the simplicity of Periscope and Meerkat is making it accessible to anyone, not just big brands with deep pockets. Author, entrepreneur, and consultant Joel Comm has been using both apps regularly, and he says planners should expect to see attendees experimenting with them at events, for example streaming keynotes, panel sessions, booth tours, product demonstrations, parties, and more.

“Clearly it’s not just the large cameras that are walking in the door anymore,” he says. “Everybody has a device. So I think we’ll see a lot more, whether it’s Meerkat or Periscope or whatever—it’s here to stay.”

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