Successful Meetings - December 2008 - (Page 28)

Sales & Marketing > Deep Impact ing effort to transform Lincoln into “American Luxury.” “Instead of passive education, facilitators, and presentations, we took the approach of coming up with an active way to get employees to ‘live the life’ of the customers,” Gerich says. CCW created a shopping experience for attendees where they were asked to choose products that reflected American luxury and differentiate between other products on display that were considered “old money” or “new money.” “By attendees actively going through it, we could measure if they were really ‘getting it.’ ” Gerich says. “It’s instant ROI.” The event was first launched with 300 internal employees and then expanded to a major dealer meeting after some adjustments. Attendees were also allowed to pick from a selection of off-site lifestyle experiences that reflected the theme. The key concern for CCW in planning these types of events is a “realistic budget,” Gerich says, adding that she doesn’t mean unlimited funds. “You can be just as creative on a small budget,” she says. “It’s really about how you embrace it.” One CCW immersion event on a reasonable Range Rover staged budget created product customer lifestyle zones at the International experiences at six resorts Motorcycle Show in partnership with Toyota and Saatchi LA that showed in “There are three key areas 13 cities nationwide. Sue for these types of events: Stahl, a client advocate consumer immersion; location and for CCW who worked on it has to be an authentic fit.” the event, says the chal—Jennifer Beindorf, director of strategic development, lenge was to draw in Campos Creative Works motorcycle enthusiasts attending the show to see increasingly popular, a trend Paint The the new Toyota vehicles without appearTown Red’s Givner attributes to the rise ing crass and commercial. Stahl says 89 of technologies like TiVo and e-media percent of the foot traffic through the that make consumers harder to reach for zone stayed to experience the Toyota marketers. products, creating a measurable ROI. “Events like this are a formal part of Famed motorcycle designer Roland the marketing mix now,” he says. “With Sands signed autographs, and attendees things like TiVo and satellite radio, a lot of had a photo op on one of his custompeople aren’t listening to commercials. designed bikes. A Toyota Tundra in the They’re also getting a lot of information middle of the exhibit showed off cusfrom the Internet. So there’s a trend of tomized features available on the truck consumers being harder to reach, and and promoted Toyota’s branding efforts. events are a high-impact way to reach Attendees were also able consumers.” to design their own helWith the variety of communication met and play Guitar channels now available to marketers, Hero, a video game that the typical marketing infrastructure at appealed to the target most companies cannot keep up with consumer audience. “We did as much as we could to understand the audience and vehicles,” Stahl says, “to create an experience for a very specific, measurable result.” new developments, Givner adds. So internal training events also benefit from nontraditional approaches like immersion. They’re a crash course in not only how these new communication technologies work, but also how consumers use them. “Usually in the past, marketers were leading the consumers. They were driving how they wanted you to think about the brand,” says Givner. “And with all this social communication now, the consumers in many cases are ahead of the marketers.” DECEMBER 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS “We did as much as we could to understand the audience and vehicles, to create an experience for a very specific, measurable result.” —Sue Stahl, client advocate, Campos Creative Works POWERFUL IMPACT While the concept of immersion events has been around for a while, they are becoming successfulmeetings.com 28 http://www.successfulmeetings.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - December 2008

Successful Meetings - December 2008 Contents Editor's Note Corporate Events On the Record Calendar Research Planner Spotlight Personal Success Technology Talk Food & Beverage Professional Development Quick Tip Tools of the Trade On Site: Retire Those Tired Power-Point Slides On Site: 12 Tips for Thriving on a South African Safari Deep Impact Recession-Friendly Speakers Showing Off Hawaii Insert Places & Spaces Mississippi Gulf Coast Fort Worth South Florida Beijing Gurus

Successful Meetings - December 2008

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