Successful Meetings - January 2009 - (Page 39)

shows, blues festivals, Bike Week in Daytona (with the F-150 Harley edition), NASCAR events, and the Minnesota State Fair. The goal, says Senatore, was to “get them in an activity that encourages them to provide contact information, so they become a ‘hand raiser’ and we can provide them more info.” Making It Work But if someone was coming to watch the rodeo, how could Ford get them to “raise their hand” for car buying information? That’s where Xperience and experiential marketing came in, providing a turnkey production, from designing the collateral to building—and staffing—the booths. What did they come up with? Senatore says: “There’s an enrollment booth, where you get a wristband and you can pick from three activities. One is ‘Sync That Tune,’ a takeoff of ‘Name That Tune.’ We play a genre of music, you compete against a friend or stranger, while the MC, a product specialist provided by Xperience, is feeding product information on how SYNC works.” Making it all work is a people process, says Senatore. “The key to the success of the tour is that it’s a family; they’re on the road with each other constantly.” Part of what makes the program successful is the ease of setup and takedown, which takes about a day. It requires just one 18-wheel car hauler, carrying a Focus, an F-150 pickup, a Lincoln, and the SYNC kiosks. (Local dealers supply additional vehicles.) The hauler is branded with SYNC graphics so it can be used as a backdrop. For street festivals and smaller shows, there’s even SYNC on Tour Lite, where just a Focus appears. “Xperience activates and produces the entire show; I just go to one or two a season to make sure it’s functioning and running properly,” says Senatore. The Xperience product demonstrators “brand as Ford, in golf shirts, managing and working the event.” In fact, she says, “They are Ford. They’re trained by Ford, they’re very knowledgeable and manage all the activities. Engaging consumers is important to us, so we invest in the core team to deliver a consistent message.” To debrief and make sure everything’s on track, “Every week we have a status meeting.” The one-on-one experience the SYNC tour offers has worked for Ford, Senatore says. “SYNC has been a very successful tour for us. Through the events, we’ve had over 66,000 engagements, people who’ve gone through and done an activity, with a conversion ratio for those asking for more information of 64 percent.” Even in such tough times, “We can’t afford not to do a tour like this,” she says. What Planners Can Learn In today’s meeting environment, controlling costs while delivering showmanship is critical. Whether working in-house or outside, meeting planners and production companies alike need to be particularly sensitive to the needs of hard-pressed clients during these difficult times. “There’s always the ability to work smarter and more efficiently when faced with budget issues,” says Gabrielle Senatore, cross-brand events manager at Ford. A production company like Xperience can control where they stay and how they travel, she says. “Working smarter and more efficiently is doable. We seem to always do more with less; we always pull it off with less budget.” John Jones, managing partner of Xperience says, “These days, most organizations are looking to make every dollar count. So, can you design elements that are cheap to fabricate, ship, and tear down? Can they be reused easily? We conceptualize and build banners and signage that can be shipped and reused throughout the tour and year after year after year. We also make them available to other agencies working with the same client, just for the cost of shipping and refurbishing.” For a multi-city tour, planning is paramount. “Plan your tour so you’re not backtracking,” says Senatore. “Buy air tickets as far in advance as possible, and avoid changes.” Jones adds, “We do a tour with a particular hotel chain and negotiate rates—we’re always shooting for the moderate, $90 room rather than $200 a night.” Over time, Senatore and Xperience have built a relationship of trust. Senatore says, “They adjust, just as we adjust . . . First and foremost, we’re partners. We’ve worked extensively for many years. We don’t nickel and dime them, but try to empower them to find any efficiencies where we can lower costs.” Experiential Meetings The power of one-on-one communications can work for meeting planners as well, says Xperience’s Jones. “Say you have a large audience of distributors or franchisees,” he says. “They’re dependent on the manufacturer to get them excited about the new product. Include some of the audience as part of the experience; have two or three of the best franchise operators talking about how they’ve succeeded. Peer-to-peer learning, or best practices pollination, as well as breaking into smaller groups for dialogue, helps deliver messages that stick.” Getting delegates out of their chairs and hands-on with your company’s products is critical, says Jones. “Years ago, we did a big event for a major Japanese electronics manufacturer. There was a typical formal presentation in a ballroom, then we opened the wall behind the stage to show eight stations with new products. Each delegate had a chance to get involved with the products they had just heard about.” SM SuccessfulMeetings.com I January 2009 I SM I 39 http://www.SuccessfulMeetings.com

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