Effectively branding an event
requires building a message
into the attendee’s experience,
says planner Chip Quigley.
Last April, Condé Nast Publications launched
its newest magazine, Domino, to much fanfare at New York City’s
trendy Skylight Studios. Long before the night had ended, the
accolades poured in, with attendees praising everything from the
eye-catching décor to the inventive fig pizza with duck prosciutto
and mascarpone. The blitz of fashion and entertainment columns that
followed the bash predicted Domino devoted to home furnishings
would be a surefire hit with the public.
What the guests could not have known, though, is that for
months leading up to the big launch, Chip Quigley, owner of New
York city-based Kingdom Entertainment, a full-service event
management group, had huddled in meeting after meeting with
Domino’s editors, grappling with the one essential element upon
which every detail hinged: How should they brand the event?
It was critical, the editors told Quigley, that Domino stand on
its own appeal, with it’s own image and voice, and without any
connection to the company’s other publications, such as Lucky or
Cargo, which already had carved their own niches in the publishing
world and the consumer mind. “We were branding an event for a
product that had never been seen before, which meant we had to get
it right the first time,” says Quigley. “Every person who walked
through the door had to immediately grasp what Domino was about,
remember it and recall it the next time they saw the
product.”
Quigley and his team decided to eschew the Condé Nast logo and
any play off the Domino name, such as a black-and-white theme.
Instead, they wanted to deliver a total sensory experience. “Domino
is a magazine about shopping. Shopping for the home. We decided to
make it come to life,” says Quigley, who transformed the space into
pages of the magazine, literally forcing guests to walk through an
issue. “They sat on the chairs featured in the publication, ate
from the plates, hugged the throw pillows. The emotional response
was immediate.”
Why brand?
Branding carries great weight in the corporate world, where
billions of dollars are spent on advertising campaigns in a
hook-’em, reel-’em-in game that, if played smartly, results in the
ultimate prize: customer loyalty. It should be equally important in
meetings and events, where the company’s image and corporate
philosophy are on public display. Why? Because every meeting or
event is an extension of a company’s ongoing identity and therefore
an opportunity to enhance and build upon that image.
For most meeting planners, however, branding involves little
more than hanging a banner at the registration area with the
company’s name and logo, or stuffing goody bags with the company’s
products. But successful branding goes far beyond logo displays.
When it’s done well, the attendee will connect with the company
identity on a subliminal level, without having to be force-fed.
“In branding events today, people make the mistake of thinking
they have to overtly ‘sell’ to the attendee,” says Quigley. “Don’t.
The attendee already knows what event they are attending. You don’t
have to keep telling them. People take in information through an
emotional connection, so think about the overall message of the
brand and incorporate that into the entire event.”
Everything from the invitation to follow-up e-mails to
giveaways is an opportunity for branding, stresses Donna Gallagher,
senior special-events manager for Germantown, Md.-based Hughes
Network Systems, a major provider of broadband satellite services.
For the past 15 years, Gallagher has organized a variety of events
for her company, from the internal annual sales meeting to vendor
user groups and external customer meetings. Branding, she says,
always has been at the forefront of every event.
“Branding needs to be thought of as a strategic move in
planning an event,” says Gallagher. “The meeting is important
because of the content, not the brand or the logo you put on
things. But subliminally, the attendee makes the connection to the
brand, and attending the next event becomes important. Done right,
branding drives attendance. It is what you wrap things around.”
How it’s done
To brand an event, first understand what the brand stands for, or
you risk sending conflicting messages to attendees or, worse,
damaging an already-established brand identity. “I find that if I
have a client who doesn’t truly understand what their event is
trying to say, they can’t successfully brand the event,” says
Quigley. He points out that companies often hold events during
times of flux, such as mergers, or they have so many products it
becomes difficult to grasp the soul of the umbrella
organization.
“Branding an event for Seagram is far more difficult than one
for Grey Goose vodka, one of Seagram’s products,” says Quigley. “It
is much easier to zero in and target the Grey Goose drinker,
capture their lifestyle, than the Seagram’s buyer.”
" Consider color. The 34,000-plus runners of
the 2004 New York City Marathon might never have heard of ING, the
Atlanta-based financial services company and the race’s premier
corporate sponsor. But by the end of the 26.2 miles, they knew this
much: ING is big on the color orange.
Bob Robinson, CMP, senior meeting planner at ING, says he uses
the color orange to brand all the company meetings he coordinates.
“From table linens, to mums in the fall and orange Gerber daisies
in summer, to our directional signs, I always try to use something
orange because it is our big color,” he notes. Also featured
prominently is the company’s other major trademark, a park bench
with the company name stamped on it.
“We sometimes have the bench at our meetings for visual effect
and for picture taking,” says Robinson, who admits to identifying
with the bench through ING commercials even before he began working
for the company.
When chosen carefully and used in the overall theme context, color
can be an important viaduct in pushing the branding message, says
Hal Etkin, chief executive officer of Fort Lauderdale-based ME
Productions. This past February, ME was asked to produce a four-day
event at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami for an Israeli
technology company making its first foray onto U.S. shores. The
guest list of potential distributors was a who’s-who roundup of the
tech world. Getting them to focus on the fact that the company was
new, different and cutting-edge was key to the branding process,
says Etkin.
“They wanted to show that they were a fresh, sharp company that
had something new to offer the tech world,” Etkin says. “What
better color than white to say that?” The client’s products were
presented against an all-white backdrop of drapes, linens and
booths that resembled Arabian tents. Invitations were white. Even
the giveaways were white, such as bathrobes with the company
logo.
" Be true to the logo. While some event
planners like Quigley prefer to pass on the company logo in favor
of overall brand personality, many corporate planners, such as New
York City-based Sara Burns of Wachovia Corp., believe in the power
of their company logo when it comes to branding corporate meetings.
And for good reason.
In 2001, Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia merged with First Union
Corp., another major financial institution. While the company
maintained the name Wachovia, it developed a new logo to represent
the newly created entity. In announcing the debut of the symbol to
the company’s 84,000 employees in March 2002, Wachovia’s chairman,
L. M. Baker, said, “The message is simple and clear we will deliver
flawless, consistent, timely and convenient service to every one of
our customers. Our new logo represents that promise.”
Today, Sara Burns is one of Wachovia’s 30 in-house planners who
rely on the power of that logo to brand meetings for the various
divisions within the giant financial services corporation. To do
that, she must follow a strict protocol on logo use as mandated by
senior management. “It is very important that our events are
branded right, and because the logo represents us, we have strict
rules on the colors, size and scaling, and what it can’t be used in
conjunction with,” says Burns. In fact, Wachovia takes its logo so
seriously, only two approved vendors can process print orders.
And because the logo is what brands Wachovia, strict rules
govern how it may be used. It cannot appear on anything red, the
color of a major competitor. It also cannot be applied to any
alcohol or tobacco-related products, such as lighters or bottle
openers. Such products are seen as “trivializing the brand,” says
Burns. Even more paramount, and certainly more telling, she notes,
is that the Wachovia trademark is never placed on anything
disposable, such as menus, napkins, food or paper cups. “The
importance of the message here is that we are not a disposable
company,” says Burns. “We are a company with staying power,
longevity. It is an extremely important branding message.”
" Incorporate products. While service
companies must rely largely on logo identification for branding,
firms engaged in selling a product, whether to another company or
to the consumer, have the ability to engage the attendee on a whole
different level if they incorporate the product into their
events.
Such was the case at the unveiling of the new
500,000-square-foot West Coast distribution center in San
Bernardino County, Calif., for Ferguson, a national wholesale
distributor of plumbing and contracting supplies headquartered in
Newport News, Va.
Because the Ferguson logo already had major recognition and
clout in the building trades industry (the company was established
in 1953), Los Angeles-based Bravo Productions, a full-service event
management company, decided Ferguson’s new products would speak
volumes to the 800-plus plumbers, contractors, and heating and
cooling repair retailers invited to the grand opening, which was
billed as the “biggest tailgate party you have ever seen.”
Sump pumps were turned into mini stand-up cocktail tables. Bar
stools were made by topping sewer piping with plumbing caps. Heat
ducts and vents, with ventilators as lamp shades, masqueraded as
floor lamps. Plumbing tubing stacked together created tables, with
shower trays filled with goodies serving as centerpieces.
At the bar, beer, wine and assorted beverages were chilled in
bathtubs and Jacuzzis. And washing-machine hoses, elbow fittings
and water heaters decorated the buffet stations. Dessert arrived on
the back of a Ferguson truck via conveyor belt.
“The key was to look at all the inventory out of the plumbing
context, and with new eyes,” says Bravo Productions owner Greg
Jenkins. “That’s how we wanted them to see it, with new eyes.” But,
Jenkins adds, branding also means you have to be careful in what
context you use a company’s products. “We could have easily used
toilets for something. However, we as well as our client agreed it
might be in questionable taste. The elements also had to make sense
to the guests.”
5 STEPS TO BETTER BRANDING
As senior vice president and director of brand promotions for Boston-based Arnold Worldwide, a leading advertising and promotional agency, Beth Rice, right, and her staff of 40 are responsible for creating and executing branding for the company’s Fortune 500 clients, including Celebrity Cruises, McDonald’s Corp., Radio Shack, Tyson Foods and Volkswagen. She shares her advice below.
1. Choose the right venue. “Site selection should be based on brand identity. One way to know if the venue is right for the event is to ask, ‘Will I be able to reach my target audience here?’ If we are doing an event for Tyson Foods, our goal would be to attract moms who care about wholesome foods. So, we have to pick a venue where we can realistically step into their lives. An all-inclusive resort for singles or a trendy boutique hotel wouldn’t be the best choice.”
2. Let them experience it. “The idea of brand experience is called ‘experiential marketing.’ Branding is more than just hanging up a banner with the company logo. In 10 years of researching Volkswagen, we have come to understand that Volkswagen owners represent a lifestyle. They attend film festivals and extreme sports events. Sponsoring the Sundance Film Festival this year helped us step into their lives. We had more than 100 of the new Jettas on hand to ferry celebrities and their entourages around. We parked one outside the VW lounge and had all the celebrities autograph the hood. We auctioned it off on eBay later, and the proceeds went to Sundance. There were people swarming around that car all week touching it, checking it out, getting a feel for it.”
3. Go for ROI. “Companies want to know where their sponsorship dollars are going, so the demand for measurability has increased. Injecting newsworthiness into an event is a great way to get ROI, because coverage in the press is a very measurable way of getting something back on the initial investment. For a Tyson Foods event, we might invite a spokesperson for nutrition to give a talk and invite health columnists. That’s something of interest I can take to the media and get some public-relations punch.”
4. Think long term. “If the service or product is new, I urge clients to think about things they can do over two to three years. Year one is always tough, but year two will be easier the brand and strategy already have been figured out, and you are building on it.”
5. Be true. “The best branded events are those that are loyal to the brand. Meetings and events should add to the brand message, not create their own message. The branding message has to be subtle, authentic and truthful. Don’t try to club attendees over the head. The best approach is, ‘I am inviting you in to experience something special. From this experience, you will walk away with a certain message.’ ” --C.A.S.
Measuring results
Determining the effectiveness of branding efforts is
similar to ascertaining ROI. While it can’t be directly measured in
dollars, planners might consider quantifiers such as the number of
new client leads generated, level of employee satisfaction or
goodwill restored as a result of the event. Press coverage,
increased attendance, positive survey feedback, renewed interest in
a product or company are all ways of measuring the success of
branding.
In the Ferguson case, where the aim was to integrate the
company’s new products into the event, success was largely measured
by the feedback from guests, who sat on, touched, felt and admired
the company’s products.
For Domino, it was the overwhelming seal of approval the
magazine received from first-time advertisers attending the event
who committed their advertising dollars to future issues.
For Donna Gallagher of Hughes Network Systems, the success of
the branding of the company’s annual “Talk...Listen...Learn” themed
event for major clients was measured by a 50 percent increase in
attendance by its second year, and attendees inquiring about dates
for future years.
“Industry respectability, guest impressions, client satisfaction,
media feedback and surveys all are measures of how successful a
branding attempt is,” says Chip Quigley. “It is important to
measure it, because it’s the only way to know if you are getting it
right.”