SOON
after Google Street View, the Google Maps feature that provides
pedestrian-level views of cities worldwide, was introduced in 2007,
people who chanced to see the image-capturing cars with 360-degree cameras mounted on their roofs began to post pictures of the sightings online with the fervor of bird-watchers.
Now, in a table-turning promotion for the New York International Auto Show,
cars are not taking panoramic Street View photographs. Instead, that
technology is being used to show panoramic photographs of cars.
Following
the first day of the auto show on Friday, when attendees have left the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan and the janitorial staff
has tidied it, a Google-authorized
crew will spend the night walking a choreographed route through the
building to photograph the roughly 1,000 vehicles on display.
The
crew will also shoot the interiors of three models — the Bugatti
Veyron, the Koenigsegg Agera R, and the Bentley Flying Spur V8 —
enabling an online approximation of what it would be like to wiggle into
the driver’s seat.
On
Monday, after the photographs have been stitched together using global
positioning technology, Google Maps users, who previously could go no
farther than the door of the convention center, will be able to cross
the threshold. Inside, by clicking the same icons and directional arrows
they used out on 11th Avenue, they will be able to amble through the
entire show with a tire kicker’s perspective. The interactive version
will also be available on the auto show’s website and mobile app.
Among
attendees of last year’s show, 57 percent of those who went with a plan
to see specific vehicles said they were likely to subsequently visit a
dealer for a test drive, compared with 30 percent of attendees without
such a plan, according to an on-site survey by Foresight Research
commissioned by the auto show, which is produced by the Greater New York
Automobile Dealers Association.
Jessica
Hodges, the marketing manager for the auto show, said that the virtual
version would enhance rather than replace the experience of attending
the show and will help with preshow planning.
The
project is intended to build excitement and to give those going to the
show an idea of what to expect. “We want to make it even easier to help
attendees preplan and give them all the information they need before
going to the show,” Ms. Hodges said.
The effort uses Google Business View,
which expands the technology of Google Street View. The technology
company, which increasingly seems headed toward omniscience, encourages
businesses to add their interiors to make Google Maps more comprehensive
but requires them to choose from a list of trusted photographers to do so. (There are about a dozen in New York City.)
Along with other digital marketing for the show, the mapping execution is by Situation Interactive, an independent Manhattan digital agency that specializes in arts and entertainment events.
In
January, the agency completed a similar project for the Broadway
musical “Wicked” in which the interior of the opulent Gershwin Theater
was photographed panoramically.
Navigating around the venue, users encounter costumed performers from
the Oz-themed show, including the Lion in the lobby, flying monkeys in a
stairwell and Glinda looking in a mirror in the ladies’ room.
The
undertaking for the auto show is at once far more complicated and
ephemeral, documenting an exhibition spanning nearly a million square
feet that will be in place for only seven days after the online project
goes live. (It will remain online on the auto show’s website for as long
as several months, according to organizers.)
Damian
Bazadona, the president of Situation Interactive, says that as newer
car models embrace technology, it is fitting for the show’s marketing to
do so as well.
“Technology
is increasingly becoming more and more of a driver in the auto-buying
experience, so this is on brand for the auto show,” Mr. Bazadona said.
“We feel like the tech savviness of the auto show itself needs to be on
par with all the technologies in the cars.”
As it has in previous years, Situation is also creating what it calls a buzz index
for the show, a real-time measure of which models are being mentioned
most on social media like Twitter and Facebook. The index will be
displayed on kiosks at the show and on the show’s website and mobile
app.
Brian Morrissey, editor in chief of Digiday,
an online publication that covers digital marketing and media, said
alerting showgoers about buzz addresses the “fear of missing out” that
can grip attendees of events like movie or music festivals, where they
dread missing the sleeper-hit film or an up-and-coming band.
As
for the online panoramic version, Mr. Morrissey lauded the show’s
marketers for recognizing that it could be symbiotic with attending the
show.
“We
used to think that digital experiences would replace real experiences,”
Mr. Morrissey said, “whereas now we’re at a point that it’s very clear
that these two different modes of experiencing things can actually work
together and enhance each other.”
Ms. Hodges, the auto show’s marketing manager, pointed out one aspect of the show that even Google cannot replicate.
“The new-car smell,” she said.
