Influencing audience mind-share by way of events is increasingly becoming tough. Reasons are many, however; ubiquity of sponsored events is the primary reason. There is a huge clutter of “events” which address the same targeted audience, be it a youth or a decision maker in a corporate. This huge exposure to events (aided by additional exposure to worldwide events content via the media & internet) has made the audience more demanding and selective of events which they are willing to engage in.
As the audience gets choosy, the brands are increasingly looking at events either to enhance or alter strategic positioning of the brands or/and to generate business leads.
The events need to be relevant. Forums which have something special, fresh and unique be it fun / knowledge / networking for the audience tend to work. Also events, by their nature are one on one interactive forums, they should not be viewed from a mass reach out perspective – there has to a special reason for engagement for each audience.
The brands need to spend a lot more time and effort on pre-research to address the changing levels of sophistication and exposure of the audience. The “newness” of the initiative goes a long way in making the impact. Content is critical to events – why should the audience choose an event over another. It is not enough for the brand to be a logo at the event.
Events which are restrictive to the audience at the venue will find the going tough due to the huge per audience acquisition costs. Events will need to be amplified and will need to touch a much larger audience base, be it by traditional media, ground level activation or interactive media like the internet or mobile, while ensuring a personalized engagement at the audience front.
Co-ownership is increasingly going to be the way to go, where best of breed partners will take the event experience to new levels and each partner will gain in their own unique manner. In a lot of cases the audience will tend to be a partner as well and contribute in terms of content.
Way forward is to open up the format by engaging the audience within the content creation and to co-create events with the audience participation.
The events need to be relevant. Forums which have something special, fresh and unique be it fun / knowledge / networking for the audience tend to work. Also events, by their nature are one on one interactive forums, they should not be viewed from a mass reach out perspective – there has to a special reason for engagement for each audience.
The brands need to spend a lot more time and effort on pre-research to address the changing levels of sophistication and exposure of the audience. The “newness” of the initiative goes a long way in making the impact. Content is critical to events – why should the audience choose an event over another. It is not enough for the brand to be a logo at the event.
Events which are restrictive to the audience at the venue will find the going tough due to the huge per audience acquisition costs. Events will need to be amplified and will need to touch a much larger audience base, be it by traditional media, ground level activation or interactive media like the internet or mobile, while ensuring a personalized engagement at the audience front.
Co-ownership is increasingly going to be the way to go, where best of breed partners will take the event experience to new levels and each partner will gain in their own unique manner. In a lot of cases the audience will tend to be a partner as well and contribute in terms of content.
Way forward is to open up the format by engaging the audience within the content creation and to co-create events with the audience participation.
6 comments:
Why do harsh on the future of the event business, la. Vj I am involved with the events business in Singapore (unfortunatly the entertainment type) and am facing a huge issue with cancellations.... when do you see this correcting.
Co-created events are immensely successful but they can never target a large enough audience, as the case is with co-created media (for ex. a video on youtube is targeted at 80-100 people on an average), so won't co-created events face the same apriori bias? I don't mean to be a naysayer on this one, but I think we need to innovate event-management at the grassroots level, by which i mean obviously, going beyond the obvious expectations/needs of our targeted segment. Perhaps we need a micro-event management structure to enable funding for roadside entertainers and so on...
Hi Suraj,
Agree with you in part:-), "Need to innovate" - agree completly. Not sure that I understand "grassroot level" too well of your comment.
I however, do not agree that co-created projects need to small scale, in fact by belief is that they can be larger than the "focussed interactions", most of which get limited to couple of hundred folks anyway. I have personally worked on projects where in we have been able to involve organizations and consumers across geographies, who have come together for different reasons but collectively have created huge events.
Hi my friends from Spore, I know what you mean... my office in the city reports a similar situation. As to when it will improve...God knows (and that too not with all certainity)...
The time however, is right to look at achieveing the objectives which an event achieved, but minus the costs.
Very good!I like your blog!
Very good content!
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