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he business world is full of clutter, bombarding the world with product offerings and marketing messages. The event world is no exception. In industries from information technology to automobiles, customers have many events from many different companies competing for their precious time. The key to cutting through the clutter, according to Marty Neumeier, president of brand consulting firm Neutron LLC, is radical differentiation: “When everyone zigs, zag.”
Corporate EVENT talked to Neumeier about how event marketers can find their own zag.
CE: In your book, “The Brand Gap,” you say there’s a disconnect between business strategy and design. Why does this gap create a problem?
MN: On one side of the gap are the strategic thinkers, who organize their work around logic — A, B, C, and so on — while on the other side are creative people, who organize their work around magic — logic-defying leaps of faith that engage, seduce, and delight customers. Both sides think the other side just thinks badly. A strategic thinker will say, “Creative people are impossible — ask them the time of day and they want to design you a watch.” A creative thinker will say, “Left-brain people are unimaginative — all they want is to do what’s been done before.”
What’s really happening here is that each type of thinker values a different outcome. Strategic thinkers value measurable progress, process, and predictability. Creative thinkers value surprise, divergence, and serendipity. But in an age of perpetual innovation, both types of thinkers need to work together.
We’re in desperate need of an organizational platform that unites strategy and creativity. That platform, I believe, is brand. Brand provides the structure, the language, and the process that can unite strategy and creativity — logic and magic.
CE: In event marketing, how does the gap reveal itself?
MN: It might show up in one of two ways: You might end up with an event that thrills participants, but fails to pull its weight in the direction of strategic goals; or you might end up with an event that aligns perfectly with strategic goals, but fails to ignite the kind of passion that unleashes organizational energy. Both are a waste of resources, since neither connects strategy and execution.
CE: Are there any symptoms to look out for?
MN: One symptom might be that the event isn’t driven by a strategic mandate. It could be a knee-jerk reaction to a short-term problem (“We need to rally the sales force for Operation Bastille!”), or addressing a tradition that has outlived its usefulness (“It’s time to start thinking about our 35th anniversary. What should we use for a theme?”) When you find yourself inventing themes out of whole cloth, you’re looking straight at the brand gap. A theme should act as well-made bridge between strategy and execution, not be tacked on after the fact.
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trategic thinkers value measurable progress and predictability. Creative thinkers value surprise, divergence, and serendipity. But in an age of perpetual innovation, both types of thinkers need to work together. |
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Another symptom is that no one on your team is sure what the business strategy is. This is probably not the fault of the team, but of management, who failed to put an internal brand program in place. There’s little brand leadership at the top, and no real brand articulation to give outside firms a clue.
CE: How can an event manager deal with 42 people coming at her with 42 competing objectives for an event?
MN: The first line of defense is to question the need for the event in the first place. Do we really need an event or is there another vehicle that would work better? In other words, be strategic and not just an order-taker. Asking why will unearth the strategic intent of the event, the reason it will make a difference to the organization. Then you can move on to what and how. When you align the what and the how with the why, you have a strong filter for making hundreds of smaller decisions about who, where, and when, and deal with competing personal or departmental agendas.
In the absence of a clear vision, everyone is second-guessing everyone else, and teams resort to protecting their turf. Obviously, this is a recipe for waste. The marketplace is cluttered with this sort of waste —too many products, too many features, too many messages, too many message elements, and too many channel brands. Lots of noise without much meaning.
CE: Is there such a thing as "event clutter"?
MN: Sure. Too many subjects, too many activities, too many messages, too many themes, too many mismatched graphics. You’ve probably seen events, for example, where speakers are allowed to stray off-topic just because they’re celebrities. You’ve probably
seen other events that flood the main stage and breakout sessions with so many topics that you can’t decide which to attend, and you’re burned out in less than a day. And you’ve probably seen too many events that bore you with repetition and a hail of bullet points.
That isn’t meant to trash PowerPoint. PowerPoint doesn’t kill people, writing does. Blaming the software is like blaming the printing press for boring magazine articles.
CE: How do you cut through the clutter?
MN: You could start by defining the
“need state” that gave rise to the event. What job will the event do that the participants are already trying to get done? You might then look at competing options. Are there any other events, or solutions, that are more attractive than yours? Among the solutions that are likely to be competing with yours, where is the “white space”? In other words, what features or success factors can you offer that competitors can’t or won’t?
CE: Can you give a concrete example of white space?
MN: I can give you an example from my own firm. At Neutron, we do a series of traveling three-day workshops for executives and designers. These folks want to stay current with the latest brand thinking, but don’t necessarily want to travel or take an expensive university course. They’re trying to advance their careers without interrupting their work. So where’s the white space? It lies in how fresh the information is (compared to a university marketing course), how small the commitment is (three days instead of a semester), how close the venue is, and how inexpensive the course is (thousands instead of tens of thousands). So we found four kinds of white space that the competition either can’t or won’t fill. If those spaces were already filled, we’d have to look elsewhere to find a zag.
To test your white-space concepts, try crafting an “onliness statement” for your event. All you do is fill in the blanks: Our event is the only _______ that ________ . For example, Neutron’s program would have an onliness statement that went something like this: “Our workshop series is the only branding course that advances executives’ careers in three days.” It has to be the only. Once you have created it, your onliness statement can lead to clear decisions about features, benefits, resource deployment, communications, and so on.
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hen you get your differentiation right, and all the zags are heading in the same direction, you can achieve the kind of success that not only adds value in short term but the long term as well, creating momentum for the brand. |
CE: How do you find a zag for a company that has longstanding
or well-entrenched brand attributes or histories?
MN: You look for the zag within the zag. If a brand already has a clearly articulated value proposition, you should reinforce it at every touchpoint. But that doesn’t mean your event should only restate the obvious. For example, if Charles Schwab puts on an event, it needs more than signs that say “Talk to Chuck,” with Chuck giving a keynote. How can clients talk to Chuck in an unexpected way that reinforces the latest offering or a competitive challenge? How will the “event zag” drive the brand forward without undermining or under-utilizing the corporate zag?
If there is no corporate zag, than you’ve got a bigger problem than simply how to design an event. The best you can do is focus on the tactical purpose of the event, in which case your zag will necessarily be confined to the short-term, and won’t contribute much to the overall value of the brand. It’s a good reason to ask the big questions: Who are we? What do we do? And why does it matter?
CE: What if you invent a zag that makes sense in the context of events, but doesn’t necessarily tie into the corporate brand?
MN: That’s fine, if all you want is to build your portfolio, or create the “look” of success. I’ll admit to doing that once or twice in my early career. But today, with more mature sensibilities, I believe this is short-sighted. It’s like paying rent on a brand instead of paying down a mortgage. It costs about the same each month, but you never build any equity.
CE: Can an event marketer design a zag for the whole program, then design a zag for each event within the program? Or would that only confuse the issue?
MN: This is an important question. Naturally, you need to avoid frivolous creativity, but you also need to inject new meaning and surprise into each of your event. It’s really a problem of hierarchy. You need to make sure that each zaglet supports the overall zag, instead of undermining or confusing it. When you get your differentiation right, and all the zags, and the zags within zags, are heading in the same direction, you can create real momentum for the brand.
Differentiating your event program is fraught with complexity — a lot of moving parts — but it’s the one activity that will build a solid foundation for all the magic you perform every day. You have to be different to make a difference. e
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