Identity’s brand proposition is based on the formula that EX + UX + CX = HX. But what does Human Experience mean, and what does it look like?

No matter where in the world we come from, what our orientation is, what our belief system is, what roles we’ve been ascribed and career choices we’ve made in our lives, there is one fact which unites us all: we are people. From the infinite diversity of the human race, we are simply that: human beings.

Over 75 years ago in his famous study to understand human behaviour, Abraham Maslow created a Hierarchy of Human Need which considers both human development and motivation. Of the five stages of need, the need to belong is the universal truth which brings us together. And this is where at Identity, we focus our efforts to deliver our promise to create the Human Experience.

Even before we were unceremoniously booted into the turbulent landscape brought to us by COVID-19, Identity had created the prescient strategy of delivering virtual events for the Royal Navy. With the marketing objective of showcasing the benefits of a career in the Royal Navy to 16-24-year-olds, events in the digital space offer risk mitigation, are data-driven and leverage the behaviours of both the Gen-Z and Gen-Y demographic.

The framework for Recruitment Event Virtual Solutions (REVS) was conceived and I was given the exciting challenge of producing the series and bringing the events to life. The initial brief for the shows was to deliver five, half-hour-long events using a chat-show format, hosted by a professional presenter and featuring the stories of real people in the Royal Navy. Alongside the live-action and pre-recorded content, whilst working closely with the digital production and marketing teams, we created on-screen messaging to facilitate chat directly to the Royal Navy team, links to expressions of interest (EOIs) and opportunities to explore content beyond the live show.

Royal Navy Virtual Event

The process of creating every event narrative begins with the question, “what will this look like from the audience’s perspective?” and “how will this meet the brief’s objectives?” For me, the answer to this question is always found in the concept of community: bringing people together for a common purpose and fostering that fundamental, Maslowian quest for belonging. In other words, creating the magic formula that is HX.

What better way to welcome new people in than by showing (never telling) what your community has to offer? We reached out to contributors by asking them to uncover and share their stories about their journey in the Royal Navy. What was your route to getting here? What’s been your proudest moment? What have you done that you would never have been able to do as a civilian?

Everyone we have engaged with has a unique story to tell and with a little coaching and support, have been generous and brave enough to go ‘on stage’ and have a conversation to show the audience what being in the Royal Navy means to them. By creating opportunities for rehearsals both pre-event and on the day of the show, my role as producer is to engender the confidence for a scripted show to flow as naturally as if the audience were part of a relaxed chat with the presenter and to feel “I want to be part of that”. That is the compelling call to action.

After five, proof of concept REVS events, Identity has been commissioned to produce a further series of virtual events. The initial tranche delivered unprecedented engagement across channels with continuous opportunities in relevancy, scalability and interactivity. We now plan to build on the success of the previous series and improve further engagement.

Futurologist Ray Kurzweil has proposed that “… over the next 100 years, we may be experiencing twenty thousand years of technological advancement, changing substantially the way we live.” The pandemic has catapulted us perhaps more swiftly into this technological advancement than we would have expected and at Identity, we have embraced the opportunities for creating extraordinary content with HX at its heart. This is not pivoting. This is a natural evolution of how we produce and deliver communications for our clients. We have more opportunities than ever to create fully immersive, 360° experiences and I for one am very excited to be part of our evolution.

Let’s have a conversation.