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Producing an Event That Brings Your Brand’s Story to Life

When a customer or employee makes an emotional connection to a brand, the long-term impact is invaluable. In this article, we discuss how the production behind your next live event plays a crucial role in strengthening the relationship between you and your target audience pre, during, and post event.

Man standing behind a camera filming presenters during live event | Global Agency, BCD Meetings & Events

How event production can elevate brand experience

We see thousands of ads every day. We are bombarded by content and messaging from every angle, and every template. Brands holler at us from billboards and bus stops, from our social media feeds and our favorite podcasts. Illuminating for a moment with a striking picture or novel word. Despite the gigantic budgets brands spend on these fleeting moments of real estate, we rarely stop to notice. We keep scrolling. Swiping on through, tuning them out.

In a media space so cluttered with noise, the opportunity for a meaningful brand experience often disappears into the cacophony. Such digital engagement strategies start to resemble something more like a slot machine, rather than a thoughtful introduction to the uniqueness of your brand or product. Simply telling the consumer how you want them to feel, or why they should buy your product is no longer sufficient. It’s not about the content—it’s about the form.

Consumers are tired of brands speaking at them. They want a conversation. A dialogue. To be spoken with. No matter how clever your brand voice is, it is experiences that bring that voice to life. When we invest in building brand experience, the results can last a lifetime. The thoughts and feelings stirred in response or reaction to a brand, are byproducts of the culmination of an individual’s total engagements with that brand. By thoughtfully crafting experiences into your brand marketing strategy, and offering something memorable outside the everyday, you can transform a passive consumer into an active participant—building greater affinity and a stronger emotional connection.

When we look out to the future of the industry, experiential marketing looms large. By offering a depth of interaction that social, email and content marketers can only dream of, experiential marketing is uniquely poised to address evolving consumer desire. We don’t just want products anymore, we want memories. When the dominant social currency of the day is a story worth sharing, you better be ready to give your consumers something one-of-a-kind.

Whether your goals are engaging consumers, or engaging partners and employees, the same elements apply. It’s about building a profound connection. It’s about creating an experience that transcends the ordinary and ignites the senses. When it comes to aligning participants behind a new strategy, initiative or product, the best events inspire, and act as catalysts for driving momentum and empowering change.

The Collective | Brand Experience from Global Agency, BCD Meetings & Events

At The Collective, we specialize in bringing events to life. We’re the creative force behind the lights, camera, and action of your moment—a fusion of imagination and technical prowess, obsessed with raising the bar of what’s possible. Our full-service event production and content creation team offers best-in-class media production, creative services, technical design, and presentation consulting to ensure that when the lights go up, your story captivates.

Event Production vs. Event Management

If you’re looking to create an event experience that will surprise and delight, you’re going to need a strong foundation to build upon. From planning and budgeting to attendee registration and travel support, it is essential to have a detail-oriented team ensuring the logistics are sound. When designed with care and precision, expert event management creates a robust frame that allows your content and programming to shine.

If event management is the canvas, event production is the paint. Event production focuses on the primary pieces of the live experience. From the lighting design and LED screens, to show calling and stage management, and multimedia content throughout, high quality production is the color that dazzles your attendees. Content development, scripting, agenda strategy—every touchpoint becomes a creative opportunity to bring your brand and messaging to life.

Understanding the Event Production Process

Pre-Event

It all begins many months before. We gather insight from the client on their values, their tone, their goals and their culture, working together to create a concept and theme that captures the essence of the client’s brand. From there, we build excitement and anticipation with a creative communications campaign. Think; a series of teaser reveal videos leading up to the announcement of the amazing venue. Or a treasure map checklist of things to prepare them ahead of time. We learn how a client’s audience best consumes messaging, and cater a dynamic campaign to entice and spur the imagination. By the time the event arrives, attendees already feel like they’re a part of something. And eager to see how it all unfolds.

On-site

On-site is where your personality, your aesthetic and your style truly shine. We take what makes your brand unique, and turn it up to 11. Whether it’s lighting up a 100-foot-wide LED screen or a mobile platform interface, creative signage or fun giveaways, this is where attendees become immersed in the magic of your mission. We lean into using technology to make every experience as personalized as possible, aiming to create interactive environments that foster participation and connection. Elements like virtual reality, interactive wearables, enveloping visuals, and individualized agendas can all tie together to create a cohesive and engaging brand experience.

The real climax comes from the live show. Combining spectacular stage design and lighting, with evocative video and passionate speakers, they can sometimes feel more like concerts than corporate meetings. We have a full roster of seasoned event production professionals to deliver every element of a show. Producers, creative directors, show callers, graphics operators, audio and lighting engineers, directors of photography, technical directors, etc. Every moment of the show is scripted and rehearsed, from the opening music to when the last presenter leaves the stage.

Aerial view of stage and audience during live event | Global agency, BCD Meetings & Events

Post-event

You brought the house down. You wowed your attendees; telling your story in a way they had never experienced before, and that they could be a part of. You put on a jaw-dropping show, and invigorated your team with a multidimensional experience that tickled their senses and tugged at their hearts. Maintaining that affinity now becomes just as important as creating it. There’s a lot of ways to package some of that emotion, but one of our favorites is by creating a fun, entertaining event highlight video you can send to everyone who attended. Let a high-energy reel spark memories and brings folks back to the special space you created. Another popular method is to record your event sessions and post edited versions in an on-demand virtual library. Providing digital resources gives attendees an opportunity to not only remember the event, but derive continual value from the experience.

When faced with a daily downpour of marketing content, consumers become numb to even the best messaging. Building strong, emotional connections comes from empowering extraordinary brand experiences, and harnessing those moments can pay dividends for decades. When it comes to corporate events, building loyalty and drive in employees works the same way. Event production elevates the attendee experience, creating a tangibility with the brand and a dynamic atmosphere that resounds. When planning your experiential strategy, be sure to choose a partner who can do it all. Who can cover the entire attendee journey from home to venue and back to home; leaving no stone unturned, and no keynote left unrehearsed. The Collective lives and breathes creating unforgettable experiences. And we’d love to build something incredible with you.

If you’d like to learn more about how event production can help bring your brand’s story to life, visit our Production & Creative Content page to learn more about The Collective’s offering.

 

Originally published Aug 16, 2021 12:26:35 PM
Last updated on Jul 28, 2023 8:35:32 AM

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Written by BCD Meetings & Events

 

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