Companies pay to advertise on everything from buildings to bus stops. So then, why not on a robot? Admittedly, this is not the core purpose and function of our services. In fact, it has nothing to do with our mission of making America the safest country in the world – except for getting humans to begin to get comfortable around a new technology! However, as our client base continues to broaden across industries, more and more are involving their marketing, public affairs and government relations teams to leverage the robot’s marketing and social media power. From dedicated websites to Twitter handles to carefully coordinated news media events using third-party marketing agencies, our clients are expanding their brand recognition in new ways.
In today’s fast-changing business environment, few organizations want to have the public perception as being slow to adopt new technology or even as being outdated. Part of the appeal with a robot using artificial intelligence and self-driving technology is that it clearly speaks volumes (literally) that the organization is forward thinking, much more than their competition in many cases. Not only can it be custom branded with a client’s logo or even more intricate graphics, but having the robot actually speak about their company, products and services is truly a unique marketing impression.
Can our robots actually help generate revenue? We believe so. While our robots don’t exactly need a W-2 for “earned wages” (meaning they actually produce revenue directly for advertising), it may not be that far down the road. Marketing teams are already keyed in to using the robots to increase foot traffic and social media presence plus greeting visitors. The reason is quite simple – while the robots literally serve as a repellent to criminals and criminal activity, they are the exact opposite, an attraction, to the vast majority of the general public. Think about it, who doesn’t want to see an autonomous robot?!? For decades movies have portrayed them as futuristic and only make believe. Well, the future is here and nearly everyone, the young and not so young, tech savvy or not, are intrigued and going out of their way to see them. This is no longer science fiction!
Two examples of their social media power provide eye opening, Hollywood A-list type statistics. Just last month, a Southern California municipality deployed our K5 in a public park and within days had an unsolicited Instagram post with over 3 million views and hundreds of thousands of likes. Then earlier this year, another K5 was at the center of 193 million (that’s right, MILLION) earned media impressions, through syndicated coverage across the US and in the UK. Our robots don’t have viruses, but they do go viral!
The role our robots play can vary greatly, depending on what our client sets out to accomplish. In some cases, the role is 80% security and 20% branding, or 100% security and 0% branding. In other cases it could be the exact opposite in some settings. So while on the one hand our robots fulfill a vital role in security and in some cases a gap, they also provide a solution to the ongoing branding/marketing/advertising challenges in a unique and fresh way!
As mentioned at the outset, our mission is far from being a marketing and advertising giant. But this aspect and capability of our service has certainly been a welcomed, and often times fun, opportunity to help expand our clients’ brands, grow revenue, and continue to feed Knightscope’s drive to make our country the safest, one community at a time. And we are always happy to make our clients smile!
