(Almost) IN-PERSON | John Holliday-Stewart

During these unprecedented times of COVID-19, person to person interaction has moved from the physical to the virtual space. Large scale events have been either postponed until later in 2020 or cancelled. Organizations have made the transition to an all-digital world, without a road map to guide the way. (Almost) IN-PERSON was a daylong conference with sessions geared towards sharing ideas/experiences involving moving in person events to the digital space. 

The opening keynote address, “The Current State of Events” was given by Eran Ben-Shushan, CEO & Co-Founder, Bizzabo. He began his speech with a powerful statement. 

"Virtual events must be incorporated in marketing strategies for businesses to remain viable. "

A startling statistic was shared, due to the cancellation of the ten biggest tech conferences, an economic loss of $1.1 billion. This figure excludes losses from corporate sponsorships, registration sales, local economic sales and customer retention. Mr. Ben-Shushan suggests a four point model for businesses to consider, when adapting to the new virtual event world. “We don’t have the knowledge or the experience regarding this type of climate,” Ben-Shushan stated. The LEAD Model focuses on Long Term (virtual will not replace in person events, but the landscape will be different post COVID), Engaging (organizations must pivot to adapt to the new virtual/hybrid landscape and highlight ways to keep attendees involved), Agile (agility is paramount and must be a part of the framework of the event planning strategy), Decisive (organizations must be thorough and make quick decisions). The main takeaway is, organizations that are flexible and embrace out of the box thinking will be the most successful producers of engaging events. 

The next session that I attended focused on ways to make virtual events as impactful as in person. “Bridge The Gap on Hybrid Events” was moderated by Brandon Rafalson, Content Marketing Strategist, Bizzabo. The panel included Nicola Kastner, Global Head of Event Marketing Strategy, SAP, Jennifer Hoffmann Roach, Head of Audience, Bloomberg Live, and Lindsay McKenna, VP of Revenue Marketing, Yext. 

The session opened with a survey of attendees, posing the question of what route has your company taken regarding events. Results were an almost even split among postponement, cancellation and moving to an online/virtual platform. We were then presented with a grim statistic, more than 60% of people surveyed feel that it will be 2021 or later before the world returns to a pre-COVID mindset regarding large scale public events. The panel provided insights on the gaps that event planners have encountered with the pivot to virtual events. Planners have struggled with maintaining a balance of providing content, while losing the in person human aspect. The panel suggested incorporating aspects such as webinars, Zoom networking rooms and message boards. There are also positives to this new way of conducting events. The long-term idea that in person events are rich and engaging and virtual events are passive, is no longer the case. Planners are ensuring that virtual events are interactive and engaging. Jennifer Hoffmann Roche stated, 

"After COVID-19, what’s important to recognize is that how we interact physically is different than how we interact digitally. We will experience a multi-phase reentry into in person events. The pendulum will not immediately swing back to its old position. "

By the end of the session, I know that this is going to be the new normal of the world, but it is not necessarily a negative. The reach of the digital space is far reaching, when compared to an in person event.


Popular posts from this blog

Brand Film Awards and Workshop 2020 | Starley J Sandez

Image
 The year 2020 has definitely been a game changer for our society and as a result of these changes, the 2020 Brand Film Awards and Workshop were broadcasted through a webinar event. The awards were transmitted live on May 7, 2020, by Campaign US and PRWeek US. The event highlighted the best brand films and showed three significant workshops with distinctive professionals from the production, communication, advertising and marketing industry.   Building Brand Love into Organic Creativity was the first workshop presented. The workshop was hosted by James Gregson, Head of Lego Social Studio and moderated by Lindsay Stain U.S. Editor for Campaign US. James spoke about how Lego has transitioned from the physical product and store to a more digital world that aligns with the changes that we are experiencing nowadays. He explained that Lego wanted to support their consumers who were facing the stress of lockdown by providing them with content that will inspire them to create at home. They cre
Read more

AdWeek 2018, 1 Year Later | William Howard

Image
I fully anticipated attending ADWeek 2018 as soon as I moved to New York. I did not expect AD Week 2018 to come to me. I was living on West 70th Street and AD Week 2018 was a short 3 minute walk from my bedroom, so I had the privilege of attending multiple sessions and dropping in and out as I saw fit, able to return home with ease. I attended sessions each day of ADWeek, but attended the majority on opening day. I wanted to get a wide perspective of the industry at that very moment, and was not disappointed. The first session I attended was hosted by Fer Machado, CMO of Burger King. I was sure to live tweet his session, as his focus was on the power of creativity for brands that are not the leader in their category. I left with a refreshed understanding and appreciation of risk, and the necessity of risk with regards to creativity, you cannot be a cautious creative. If your brand wants to stand out, you have to be willing to take creative risks, to get the attention your brand needs,
Read more

2020 Adobe MAX Conference | Shadiq Williams

Image
Session: “Smarter Social Storytelling | Gary Vee Interview” | linkedin.com/in/garyvaynerchuk/ Notable Quote: “Stay Agile: be ready to pivot … Be Human: focus on being empathetic … Serve: be of service to others … Play more: experiment; explore; worst thing to do is to not try new things” Gary is already so well known for this expertise in media strategy and his raw, unfiltered delivery, but this particular interview gave me a much stronger understanding of how he thinks and why his mind is so valuable. One of the most noteworthy things that Gary shed light on is how he is able to land on his insights that often feel near psychic. He explained that his main strategy is to study cycles of human habits in order to predict what should be expected in the future. The example that he gave was in response to why he so heavily advocates for collecting baseball cards. Gary’s explanation is that if you look into the generation that collected baseball cards, you will notice that they are now beco
Read more