On Time and On Budget: Measuring Corporate Event Success Differently

Regardless of what industry you’re in, you likely learned early on that delivering a project on time and on budget is important, critical, and ultimately the indication of a successful execution. However, at Brand Alive, these aren’t our primary drivers to measure success for a client. We dig deeper and think bigger.

Having worked both brand-side and partner/agency side, we know that success is so much deeper than that. Corporations and brands are leveraging experiential tactics to support bigger business strategies and therefore  our success is measured differently than most might think. 

When working with big brands and corporations, we understand three key spoken or unspoken truths about successful events:

• Every project is either directly or indirectly elevating shareholder value

• Public perception of the brand during XM activations can directly impact sales

• Employees subconsciously correlate the quality, thoughtfulness and ease of an event to how much the organization cares for them

These truths have taught us that our event experiences have to be air-tight and must directly support the business strategy. Every event a corporation or brand executes must ladder up to a core business values and objectives and must deliver measurable impact.

Here are a few common corporate objectives that events or experiential tactics can deliver on for organizations, both employee-facing and external, as well as measures of success. 

1. Amplify internal culture

2. Drive key messages

3. Connect on business ideas

Authentic employee engagement is the heart of internal brand culture and when corporations offer opportunities for human to human connection within the business, culture is amplified in the truest way. This leads to reduced employee turnover and better recruiting opportunities, and who doesn’t want that? 

Employees who feel connected to the brand and who feel a part of the culture drive the overall success of the organization. This leads to company efficiency, quality of work, and passion for the business.

For external brand activations, success is often measured in these ways:

1. Customer acquisition and sales 

2. Strengthened brand affinity and sentiment

3. Increased brand and product awareness

Corporations strategically also choose to activate experiential marketing efforts within an already-existing property, like Shaw’s Grey Cup sponsorship activations or Bumble hosting a fan experience at Coachella, for instance. These strategies allow brands to either increase customer sales and/or impact the business’ bottom line or simply brand build to generate audience love in person and online. 

As strategic event producers, understanding the business objectives and clearly articulating the desired outcomes with our clients leads us to the right experiential design, thus giving our clients the greatest opportunity to leverage.

Regardless of the overall purpose of an event, scope of the activation or the size of the audience, the design of an experiential project should always tie back to a corporate business strategy and therefore the project is measured by how well it fit into the objectives laid out by the brand. 

For us, delivering on-time and on (or under) budget is just a given.