Meeting Planners
Links
Event Branding for Success
By Linda Ilsley, CMP
In this era of budget scrutiny and emphasis on results, meeting planners look to suppliers to provide value and justification for their event investments. Event branding can enhance the value and reinforce the client’s key message during the event. To be successful, this strategy requires creativity and collaboration from every supplier from the overall project coordinator to the production staff at the venue to the florist. But the effort will pay off in more client appreciation and stronger relationships.
Branding Pulls It All Together
The first step in branding an event is to understand the client’s goals and the key message to be communicated during the event. Branding can work for any type of event, team building, education, an awards ceremony or a new product launch. Rather than having a celebratory sales meeting, many companies will benefit from a theme—or “brand”—that relates to their sales goals or overall marketing strategies.
For example, one financial services company used the theme of “Prescription for Success,” which aligned with its goals for the coming year. For consistency, the company created a brand logo that was used on all meeting collateral, on the bottled water at the event and in the decorations throughout the venue.
Branding Carries the Theme
This company didn’t stop with the logo and decorations, though. All event details were scrutinized to ensure that the theme was consistently used throughout—even chocolate bars were imprinted with the “Prescription for Success” logo. These bars were handed out by a wacky-looking doctor in a white coat as guests entered the event. Instead of just handing out the standard pens with logos, event sponsors used syringe-shaped pens imprinted with “Prescription for Success” and notepads that looked like prescription pads.
There’s more. Using lighting effects the company projected the brand logo of the event on a large pipe-and-drape screen behind the speaker’s platform. The prescription pad design served as the backdrop for a PowerPoint presentation. The wacky doctor made return appearances during breaks to hand out healthy snacks while servers dressed in medical apparel replenished the break stands. The theme carried through to the cocktail hour and dinner, and a martini bar served “Health Quest Cosmos” and “Stress Relief Martinis,” among other beverages with prescription- and medical-related names. Then the menu cards for dinner used the prescription pad motif along with catchy theme-related names for the dishes served. To take the theme one step further, centerpieces could be medical bags overflowing with medical items.
Amenity bags in guest’s hotel rooms held health-related items such as eye masks, exercise CDs, rubber exercise bands, Power Bars and logo-imprinted water bottles. Guests could also take advantage of free chair massages during the event.
Takeaways and Results
Branding is all well and good, but how will you know if it’s worked? Here’s where the event evaluation comes in. In addition to the standard questions, you can ask participants, “What elements of the event supported the message?” Their feedback will show which elements had the most impact.
To supplement the written evaluations in the “Prescription for Success” scenario, a “Doctor on the Spot” (not necessarily the wacky doctor serving food) conducted spot interviews with participants and asked what branding tools helped support the theme. These conversations were done fairly early in the event so that organizers could demonstrate to the client how the branding strategy had worked to support their goals.
Enhancing Investment Value
With clients more focused on bottom-line results than ever before, branding can enhance the value of the investment while reinforcing the message and increasing the return on investment. Whether it’s a NASCAR theme, a space theme such as “Launching into the Future,” a “Surviving Change” theme based on the popular TV show Survivor or “Quest for Success” with an Olympic theme, branding events can help to create win-win outcomes for clients and suppliers alike.
LINDA ILSLEY, CMP, is director of marketing for Sterling Events Company, the North Carolina member of USA Hosts, and president of the MPI Carolinas Chapter. She can be reached at linda@sterlingeventsco.com.
Sidebar #1
Branding Checklist
- What are the client’s goals and expected outcomes for the event?
- What theme or brand would best communicate the overall message?
- What design elements would best convey the message and theme?
- What branding tools can each supplier use to carry out the theme during the event?
- What sort of extras or amenities would further reinforce the message?
- How can the meeting evaluation be used to measure how well the brand worked?
Reprinted from the
Meeting Professional magazine May 2006 &bull Volume 25 &bull Number 5
