Meeting News - January 25, 2010 - (Page 10)

Meetings Spotlight Aflac Targets Attendee Engagement Insurance provider Aflac in the past year has transformed its meetings into highly interactive multimedia environments focused on targeted marketing, driving audience engagement and delivering customized attendee experiences. Since joining Aflac in November 2008, senior vice president and chief marketing officer Jeff Charney has applied an integrated marketing approach to the company’s meetings program by rethinking the atmosphere in which meetings are held and the ways in which messages are delivered. By Seth Harris sharris@meetingnews.com products and align with how people now consume information. Aflac’s meetings now feature what Charney calls “a little bit of shock and awe in a fun way,” with musical backdrops, executive question-and-answer sessions, mosh pits, “Amazing Race”-type events and “duckumentaries”—a reference to the company’s duck mascot—and stories that feature Aflac customers and spokespeople. “I want to provide the same kind of breakthrough culture on the marketing side onto the meetings side,” Charney said. “Today, people need to crack through the clutter. If you are going to spend eight, 10 or 12 hours or even 30 minutes of somebody’s time in a meeting, you better make sure that those meetings can get people’s attention.” A key part of Aflac’s program is customizing each meeting for an individual audience. Charney said the marketing department developed more than 160 presentations for executive keynote presentations last year, and no two were identical. Before an event, the department researches previous meetings and weighs the message to be delivered to determine how to tailor individual presentations. “Everything has changed in how people communicate,” Charney said.“You can’t just go there and stand up and pump PowerPoint slides and think people are going to pay attention. Never present the same presentation more than once. There is an art to meetings. It is a real science. People understand the science, but don’t always understand the art. “You have to know your audience, know how to reach your audience and how to push your audience to the edge, but never go over,” Charney said. “They pay more attention on the edge. You are not paying attention on the conservative side, and you are not paying attention if you go off the edge. If it is off the shelf, than keep it on the shelf because we are never going to use it.” Charney said he has brought the innovative marketing and interactive approach to Aflac’s meetings as many other companies have seen attendee satisfaction ratings drop. “The reason why it’s down is because people are doing it the same old way,” he said. “Meetings today have gotten shorter, stronger, bolder. People can’t phone it in anymore.” ❍ J a n u a r y 2 5 , 2 0 1 0 Vo l u m e 3 4 , N u m b e r 1 Corporate/Sales Nella Veldran, Vice President, Travel Group Phone: (646) 654-7325 Southeast/Mid-Atlantic/Ohio Larry Mischik, Ad Director/Account Manager 3054 Four Oaks Drive, Atlanta, GA 30360 Phone: (770) 604-9641 N.Y./N.J./New England/Bermuda/Caribbean Diane DiMaggio, International Advertising Director 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-7332 Florida/Cruise Arthur Hyman, Associate Publisher/Account Manager 1267 Via Fiume, Boynton Beach, FL 33436 Phone: (561) 736-5374 CA/HI/Colorado/Arizona/Nevada/N.M. Sharon Freeark, Account Manager 2950 31st St., Ste. 100, Santa Monica, CA 90405-3037 Phone: (626) 578-0700; Fax: (626) 578-0720 Digital Sales Jared Smith, National Account Manager 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-5520 International Diane DiMaggio, International Advertising Director 770 Broadway, NY, NY 10003; Phone: (646) 654-7332 Diane.Dimaggio@nielsen.com Canada Cyndy Fleming, Publicitas APR 468 Queen St. E, Toronto, ON M5A 1T7 Phone: (416) 363-1388 Cyndy.Fleming@Publicitas.com Western office: Rosalind Genge, Publicitas APR 1281 W. Georgia St., 502, Vancouver, BC V6E 3J7 Phone: (604) 688-5914; Fax: (604) 689-0703 Rosalind.Genge@Publicitas.com Mexico & Latin America Veronica Castro, CASS Media Corina No 31-B; Col. Del Carmen Coyoacan, Mexico, DF 04100 Phone: 52-55/5605-1757 veronicacastro@cassmedia.com Singapore Lavender Tan, Al Media 733 Bukit timah Road #03-05, Singapore 269748 Phone: (65) 6469-9321; Fax: (65)6469-8028 lavtan@signet.com.sg Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines Annie Blanchard & Assoc Unit 9A #8 Wack Wack Rd. Condo-minium, Wack Wack Rd., Greenhills E, Mandaluyong City 1550, Metro Manila, Philippines Phone: (632) 646-2497; Fax: (632) 647-1853 abaltd@skyinet.net Aflac’s Jeff Charney By combining a marketer’s mindset with high audience interaction and new media, the Columbus, Ga.based company achieved its highest attendee ratings for its annual Focus meeting, its largest of the year, which was held in Nashville several weeks ago. On post-event surveys, 92 percent of attendees found the meeting “extremely valuable.” Through a live Webcast on the first day of the threeday event, Aflac was able to reach its 75,000 sales agents and more than 4,000 corporate employees. Charney said the Webcast was used to “explode” the message. The next two days were used to explain the message and set the tone for 2010. As a follow-up in the next few weeks, the company will hold more than 90 local meetings to spread the company’s goals and objectives with its sales associates and employees. Charney has adapted the program to align with “radical” changes that have occurred in marketing in the past five years in order to gain more attendee interaction, build loyalty, differentiate the company and its 10 MeetingNews January 25, 2010 Korea Jung-Won Suh, Sinsegi Media Inc. 4-13, Yoick-dong, Kandungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea 150-890 Phone: +82 2 3275 5969; Fax: +82 2 785 8225 sinsegi-2@sinsegimemdia.info Japan Hiroko Kujime, Pacific Business, Inc. Matsuda Building, 2-4-6 Nihonbashi Kayabacho Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0025; Phone 81-3-3661-6138 Fax: 81-3-3661-6139; Kujime-pbi@gol.com Taiwan Ye Chang & Paula Liu, Epoch Ltd 3F-4, 189 eelung Road, Section 2, Taipei 11054, Taiwan Phone: +886-223-779108 epoch.paula@msa.hinet.net, epoch.ye@msa.hinet.net Spain Luis Andrade, Luis Andrade Publicidad Internacional Plaza Descubridor Diego de Ordas 1, Madrid, 28003, Spain Phone: +34-91-441-6266, Fax: +34-91-441-6549 LAndrade@luisandrade.com Portugal Paulo Andrade, Ilimitada Media International Av. Eng. Duarte Pacheco; Amoreiras Torre 2, Piso 5 Sala 1, Lisbon, 1070102, Portugal Phone: 351-21-385-3598/45; Fax: 351-21-388-3283, PAndrade@ilimitadapub.com www.meetingnews.com http://www.MeetingNews.com http://www.meetingnews.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meeting News - January 25, 2010

Meeting News - January 25, 2010
Contents
Newsmaker
Meetings Spotlight
Association Watch
Meeting People
Ad Index
Dateline: Las Vegas
Construction Cites
Dateline: Florida
South Regional
Golf Meetings

Meeting News - January 25, 2010