Imagine a marketing exec skipping around like Charlie from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory singing that they have the golden ticket, well break out your hat and tweed jacket because here it is — interactivity.

It stems from the gold rush of social media. Where companies gushed over the ease of interacting with their customers and potentials and actually being able to ask, “hey, what do you want?”

Let your customers and target market interact with not only you but also your brand. When they become involved with the brand itself, they actually build a relationship with it, which forms into brand loyalty. By this I don’t mean throw up a Facebook page and cross your fingers. I’m talking about applications.

A great example on how it is done right is by Vitamin water with their “flavor creator” Facebook App. They allowed their fans to take part in creating a new flavor and they made it fun. A consumer is always more enticed to buy a product when they feel that they have been a part of the development. More importantly they are telling you what they want, is that not the goal? To create something that the consumer will enjoy, will purchase and ideally, rave about.

Its really quite simple, an idealistic world, give the people what they want.

Lets compare this to Coke Zero’s Facebook app. This app scans a photo of yourself and searches Facebook for people who look like you. A little creepy but very cool. While the app is loading it has a picture of Coke Zero  and of course its resulted match for “find another you” is Coke. Which is a little funny in itself because yeah it looks exactly alike.. its the same bottle. Regardless the point gets across Coke Zero apparently tastes just like Coke, along with gaining the attention of the viewer. However, I think Coke misses; it gets a little off topic and is honestly more just a cool feature than a successful interactive campaign that will result in sales.  It does accomplish a few main things, gets people to their website and informs the viewers in a fun way that Coke Zero tastes like Coke. The problem is that it does not connect the person to the brand in any way, it misses on that relationship, the attachment.

If you can build a relationship between your brand and your customer than you have created loyalty. Let them get involved, let them become defensive about THEIR brand. Let them shout it from the roof tops.. or just tweet it, which has the same effect if not larger.

Interactivity creates brand awareness, loyal customers and brand advocates.So get creative, reach out to your customers, find out what they want, give them something to play with and have fun with them.