Harnessing creativity for exceptional event experiences
Marc Allott is creative director at First Event, an award-winning Yorkshire-based agency whose 360 degree approach to client collaboration supports their design of exceptional event experiences that strengthens future marketing strategies.
People often associate the word ‘creative’ with loose and fluffy concepts. But our creative delivery is deeply rooted in consistent, strategic decision making. When you do something that’s based on a clear strategic outline, it’s more than just a pretty picture you create, it’s a clear argument that your attendees find easy to hook into and advocate for.
Our best work is achieved when we have a truly transparent collaboration with our client. It’s in these long-standing relationships where we can truly understand the personalities within the customer and the brand, and act as that partner as part of a long term marketing strategy. Ultimately, our job as events professionals is to align with our clients communications objectives, and shine a spotlight on the incredible work that they do. We can only do this if we have that in-depth understanding of their business, their pain points, and their goals, ultimately becoming an extension of the team.
It’s not just about being handed some brand guidelines and disappearing to create an event mockup. We’ll have conversations across different parts of the business, from the CEO to marketing to HR, to understand the core need within the business, and how this manifests itself within different areas of operation. Whatever experience it is that our clients want to create, we need good relationships with every department in order to make it happen, and a solid, well researched, understanding of the thread that links all these departments together.
Once we’ve established that core thread, we make sure that we’re consistent in how we translate this across every touchpoint in the experience. These experiences are more than just a moment in time, they’re a key component of a wider content plan. Therefore, how we approach these experiences should reflect this. And, by making sure that we understand the objectives and have the strategy to deliver on them we can be confident in our creative output.
It’s this approach that produces the kind of events where customers can experience products and businesses in new ways. These experiences become three-dimensional, and involve all of the five senses to create moments, not just messages. Rather than filling an event with an overwhelming number of threads that become tangled, we ensure that each of these jaw dropping additions are hand selected to clarify and enrich that core proposition.
It’s the same emotional experience as if you were in Wembley stadium watching your favourite band. Everyone is in tune with why they are there. Amazing creative can get you into a space where people come out buzzing like they’ve been to see music legends. Through our understanding of the main objectives and translation of them to inform our plan, we can create those emotionally impactful consumer experiences that are hard to achieve through other channels, and foster that conversation beyond the experience itself.
Using the data we pull from a successful event, we can inform the next conversations we have around the future evolution of our client’s strategy. That’s how we create a continuous, 360 relationship with our clients. We strengthen that strategy each time we get more data and analytics about the business, its audience, and its needs. From brief to delivery, all insights are seamlessly integrated and contribute to the brilliance of the overall campaign. The end product? Data driven decision making for future marketing strategies that foster your community and generate long term loyalty.
