We are Event Strategists, Not Event Planners
Events and experiential marketing are widely used business tactics that brands leverage to impact human culture and drive business results. Because of this, the success of experiential projects is even more important than ever. We believe that defining a strategy for the event before moving into design and production is the path to overall success. How do we build a castle without first laying the foundation?
Here’s a high-level glimpse into our strategic process:
Purpose drives the articulation of event objectives.
Defined objectives act as the goal posts within which we create a strategy.
A clear strategy offers us the chance to design with purpose.
A well-crafted event design leads us to production and execution phase.
Soon this process leads us to the morning of an event load-in. Just like that!
We are immensely clear as an event management agency that the best creative is built on strategy.
Does this land with you? Do you use a strategic process in your work, too?
Corporations, for example, don’t hire for creative simply because it looks good in a proposal deck or because we show them the newest, latest trend in events.
Most brands care about:
Does the event tie back to our overall business strategy?
Will the execution yield measurable results for our brand?
Do our event management partners understand who we are as a brand and build us an events strategy that fits?
An easy trap to fall into is to start the process by talking about the look, feel, vibe, decor, energy, entertainment, onsite concepts, and ‘things’ right out of the gates because that’s the visual product the client is purchasing. These things are all vital and they will have their time in the process.
But, it’s not what all clients are really investing in.
Here are a few of our favorite conversation starters when digging into the strategy phase with a corporate client:
But why?! We ask our corporate clients a series of “why” questions to get to the highest purpose of the project, in an effort to most succinctly illuminate the exact result we are working towards. Kind of like being a four year old wanting all the info!
Internal politics: Who in your organizational leadership team needs to be happy with the final result and how can we get in front of him or her? And, can we define “happy” so we can enable this leader to endorse the project going forward?
Data Data Data: Do you have any data, feedback, anecdotes or metrics from previous events like this? We love numbers, metrics, anecdotes and context.
Evolution vs. Change: Are you open to us evolving this event experience in ways that make sense strategically for your brand? Change for change’s sake isn’t a good strategy so let’s appreciate what’s been built before and evolve instead.
If you are somehow invested in learning more about the events industry (as a client brand with an initiative on your hands, or an emerging event professional entering the industry, or somewhere in between), we encourage you to embrace this strategic approach:
Always start with strategy. Say it with us now: Always. Start. With. Strategy.
If the topic of a process with huge value interests you, we encourage you to engage with ILEA International (@ILEAHQ on Insta) and join their #GlobalEventForum conversations, all about the strategic process as versus the product (the events themselves). Check out the 2019 Global Event Forum White Paper. Our founder, Lisa Marks, is one of 30 international event professionals invited to annual Global Event Forum summits, digging through important topics centered around the special events industry.
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