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When Compuware Corp. debuted its OJ.X user conference at the company’s world headquarters in Detroit in 2004, its most coveted target demographic — IT managers — comprised less than 5 percent of the event’s participant list. In 2005, Compuware was determined to increase that percentage significantly. So it turned to local industry organizations for help.
In the months leading up to the company’s second annual user conference in October 2005, event planners conducted telephone interviews with organizations such as GLUG.net (Greater Lansing Users Group), the “Great Lakes IT Report,” and the Michigan Council of Women in Technology, among others, to gain insight into the needs and interests of IT managers.
Based on the results, Compuware created a comprehensive IT Management Track, added presentations by several industry gurus and research analysts, and enlisted the participation of premier event sponsors such as Microsoft Corp., the Eclipse Foundation, and Hewlett-Packard Development Co. to give the OJ.X educational offerings some third-party cachet. Additionally, it brought in special guest speaker Joe Dumars, vice president of basketball operations with for the Detroit Pistons, who presented a management-level session entitled “Leadership and Building a Great Team.”
In the end, more than 1,000 attendees participated in Compuware’s 2005 user conference (up from 923 in 2004) — and a solid 30 percent of attendees came from the company’s targeted managerial demographic.
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There’s nothing like having the ear of a top executive to make a VIP feel important — and that was exactly eBay Inc.’s strategy at the e-Bay eCommerce Forum last January in San Jose, CA.
The online auction company rewarded its top 250 sellers — business-savvy entrepreneurs who run highly successful online businesses — with an invitation to spend two-and-a-half days collaborating face-to-face with eBay execs and a select circle of their top-selling peers. According to the company, the event paid tribute to top sellers by recognizing the importance of their contributions to the eBay community.
eBay’s primary goal for the Forum was to increase long-term sales, by making sure top online sellers regard eBay as a key component of their business success and to reinforce relationships with top sellers.
To accomplish this, the event featured more advanced content than the company’s annual seller-wide event, eBay Live! (see “Using Events to Create Customer Community, Corporate EVENT, Vol. 1 No. 1). eBay revealed inside information on forthcoming products and services, making attendees among the first to know about new eBay products and reinforcing their VIP status. Attendees also shared best practices and tips to leverage growth and increase sales.
The event was also an opportunity for eBay staff to spend quality time with top sellers. At the Town Hall, for example, event host and eBay president, North America, Bill Cob and a panel of eBay executives gave attendees a chance to ask questions and make suggestions. They also addressed outstanding issues from participant comment cards and allowed sellers to talk about anything of mutual interest to the community — creating a two-way dialogue that showcased eBay’s commitment to helping its top sellers succeed and provided the online auction company with valuable input for future improvements.
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Most companies will do whatever it takes — within reason — to meet their customers’ needs. But “painting nails” is definitely not a duty included in most sales reps’ job descriptions.
HealthStream Inc., a Nashville, TN, provider of technology-based learning solutions to health-care organizations, offered its prospects manicures and more at its pre-trade-show event at the National Nurse Staff Development Organization conference in New Orleans last summer. The company wanted to showcase its products and services to professional nurses with responsibility for nursing-staff development. But HealthStream wanted to avoid appearing “too corporate.” So it maintained a personal touch, creating an environment in which attendees could converse and where the company’s current customers could informally promote its products to prospects.
The solution was an invitation-only pre-show spa for current and prospective customers. As attendees entered the event, they were greeted by HealthStream personnel who guided them through the spa stations. Services included manicures (some of which were given by HealthStream reps), paraffin hand treatments, and neck massages.
“Our audience spends a lot of time taking care of others, as educators and in hospital settings,” says HealthStream director of marketing Jeremy Roberts. “They also rarely get away from the office. The spa event focused some attention on a group that rarely receives any.”
The personal touch paid off. HealthStream invited a group of 80 percent prospects and 20 percent existing customers. Its goal was for 50 percent of invitees to attend. In the end, 71 percent attended. Better yet, approximately 50 percent stayed for the entire event, even though the spa options only took a few minutes per person.
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Infomercials get a bum rap. Often reserved for late-night TV, they are widely regarded as a venue for has-been stars, colorful hucksters, and dubious “experts” with questionable backgrounds.
 Corny as infomercials may be, however, the format is effective — Americans alone spent more than $8.5 billion last year on all products seen on late-night infomercials, reports the New York Times.
DSM Food Specialties tapped in to the world of the Bowflex and OxiClean when it hosted a customer-appreciation lunch for executive-level decision-makers from some of the largest breweries in the world during the Inter-national Congress of the European Brewery Convention in Prague, Czech Republic, last year.
DSM launched its newest product, Brewers Clarex, which is marketed as a cost-effective way to eliminate messy residue formation in beer, using a series of “infomercials” at the event. In four short breaks during the luncheon, a quiz-show-like character called “Brewster Clarex” and his sidekick Tony demonstrated three products on TV-stage sets around the room. Each one- to two-minute skit promised a no-mess product solution, and all three demos failed miserably.
In one skit, for example, Tony slathered mayonnaise all over his body, claiming the serum to be Tony’s Skin Protection Sun Filter Lotion: the world’s “greatest, fast-absorbing suntan lotion.” But, the lotion didn’t absorb at all; it just made a mess.
The pair also introduced The Coffee Ground Collector CGC 2005 (a coffee filter that broke the second something was placed in it) and Household Pet Litter Absorbents, which didn’t absorb anything.
Finally, just before fourth demo was about to begin, a DSM representative in the audience stood up and pleaded with Brewster and Tony to stop the madness. “Beer brewers do not like messes!” he said. After stating that messy absorbents are an expensive problem in the beer-brewing business, he described DSM’s Brewers Clarex, which helps brewers stabilize and clarify their beers without absorbing or removing positive
ingredients that are crucial to the drink’s flavor and “mouth feel.”
The brewers responded to the irreverent approach. Forty percent of lunch participants attended an extensive product lecture the next day — 7 percent more than projected. And shortly after the event, DSM entered into product-testing agreements with 14 brewers.
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Kos Pharmaceutical Inc. had a problem with event attendees who mentally and physically checked out of its general session, surreptitiously scanning their cell phones and BlackBerrys, or leaving the room entirely. So at its national sales meeting in January 2006, Kos used competitions and games to keep attendees in their seats.
To make its audience accountable for the content Kos presented, the Cranbury, NJ,-based company inserted game-show style competitions throughout its general session. At random times during the four-day event in Palm Springs, CA, an emcee called one attendee from each of the company’s nine sales regions up to the stage to compete in challenges that tested their retention of information recently presented. Attendees didn’t know who would be called up to stage or when.
Once on stage, the nine contestants participated in competitions such as a spelling bee, where they had to define and spell technical terms from the previous presentation, and “Name That Study,” where the emcee read blurbs from medical studies discussed earlier in the session and attendees had to identify the study from which the blurb was taken. To keep attendees energized and on their toes, Kos also threw in just-for-fun games such as musical chairs and a paper-airplane-flying contest.
First-, second-, and third-place winners won individual prizes, such as satellite radios or gift certificates to the hotel spa, as well as points for their respective sales regions. Representatives from the sales region that earned the most points by the end of the event received backstage passes to meet and take a photo with the rock band Train, which entertained the crowd on the event’s final evening.
According to Mark Ledogar, vice president of the event’s producer One Smooth Stone, based in Downers Grove, IL, every single seat in the general session was filled because attendees had to be in the room when their name was called to compete. Attendees ranked the game-off as one of the most popular activities of the event in their post-event surveys.
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To teach dealers to differentiate its products from the competition’s, International Truck & Engine Corp. placed competitor products alongside its own at its 2005 Dealer Experience event.
Called “The Truck Stop,” the event featured 18 commercial trucks, each with five numbered displays, and a museum-inspired, self-guided MP3 audio tour of each one. The audio was professionally narrated and contained custom training content, including a series of questions that corresponded to numbers positioned on each truck. |
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To highlight emergent movers and shakers in the information security industry, RSA Security Inc. featured an Innovation Station — a special area of the exhibition hall dedicated to showcasing innovative information-security products and services from start-up and pre-IPO companies — at its annual North American RSA Conference.
In a twist on the typical product shootout (where vendors put their products to the test side-by-side), 11 of the companies featured
at the station competed in
a showdown, during which each competitor presented its business case and was judged on several criteria including the quality of its management team, its potential market impact, the technological significance of its products, and the quality of its presentation.
Up and comers also had
a chance to showcase their solutions in the expo’s Tech-nology Showcase Theatre, where ongoing 30-minute presentations from industry start-ups were featured throughout the event. |
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No one likes to reinvent the wheel. That’s why BMO Harris Private Banking, a wealth-management company headquartered in Toronto, worked with AMW Direct & Interactive in 2004 to create an “Event in a Box” kit to help company marketers plan, implement, and evaluate Harris Private Bank events.
The kit provides non-marketing staff assisting with events with tools, templates, and information about what needs to be done to plan, manage, and evaluate an event. Inside, the box includes items such as a complete guide to event-planning best practices, a list of standards to be used for all bank events, templates to assist in event planning, and supporting materials such as name tags, signage, and invitations.
The intent was not to have all Harris Private Bank events be the same, but rather to ensure that the process of planning, managing and evaluating events was the same in all areas. |
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