Joe Pine interview by punkmedia on Vimeo.

All over the globe we see event people struggling to find their new roll in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape. Searching for the right arguments to sell their high costs per head services to a clientele that has become…let’s say… somewhat economically challenged.

Return on investment has become the industries mantra. The only question is: “return in what?” Sonia Andresson-Nolasco writes in the March issue of Event Marketer Magazine: “The digital age has helped transform the typical event staff from warm bodies to tech-savvy, data-collecting machines”. Helped? Data-collection? If this is the type of ROI event people are selling, the only conclusion is that –thanks to the “digital age”- there are far more (cost)effective ways to collect data  than through an event.

The real value of events.
I suggest we should focus on is what makes an event an highly effective tool in the first place. And that is quite simple. It is the only medium that physically touches people through all senses. A proper event makes your target group see, hear, taste, smell and feel what they can expect from a brand or proposition and grabs them firmly but friendly by the hand, towards the behavior this brand expects from them. The same way super market designers “lure” consumers into topping up their cart a little more before check out.

After more than twenty years in this business, serving well known brands in Europe, writing four books on the subject and lecturing strategic event marketing on 3 universities in the Netherlands, it still amazes me how sloppy most events are strategically designed and implemented in marketing, sales, HR and internal branding strategies. Therefore it is no wonder that many companies still write off events as “costs” instead of “value”.

The historical explanation is the rather naïve way companies and agencies initiate, design and evaluate events: clients were satisfied when their audience left the venue dazzled with excitement, smiling from ear to ear and gratefully padding the host on the back. A host, convinced that the happiness and moist eyes of it's guests would lead to something, somewhere down the line. But to what? And When?

My "Blues Brother Moment".
That led to my “Blues Brother Moment” in 1989. You remember the scene. Jake and Elwood are in the back of the church, the clouds part and a ray of sunlight hits Jake. He sees the light.

My “revelation”: ok, so these guests leave impressed and satisfied. Now what? I could not believe that the same well thinking corporate professional that would normally do his marketing math, invested that impressive amount of money  in endorphin without check out. It fascinated me…

That fascination led to the development of our Brand Relationship Toolbox that is still the center of BENG!’s strategic thinking today. Instead of asking our event clients the “traditional” questions like: when? Where? How many?, we wanted to know what they wanted to achieve bottom line. How their current relationship with the most effective target group was. How their goal and brand values were currently perceived by that target group. And what arguments and emotional signals were necessary to gain their contribution.  

By drawing logical conclusions from the answers to these relevant questions to corporations, their employees and clients, we collected essential knowledge to design a well embedded multi-sense experience for maximum brand performance and conversion.

Instead of (at best) delivering endorphin to our clients, we were suddenly selling 8.000 central heating systems in one night, all BMW’s available for the Dutch market that year in 48 hours and did we raise the usage of the Dutch Yellow Pages from 250 million to 275 million a year in 10 minutes. Yep 10 minutes! In –mind you- 1992, almost 15 years before “social thinking” hit the corporate world. You can imagine how excited we are about today's possibilities and media. 

The “secret” however, has always been astoundingly simple: we do not take the beaten track and cliché's for granted. Essentially we aim to design the most effective strategies and concepts for our clients, as if their challenge was ours. Curious, objective, analytical, creative and totally committed to maximum results. And if we are convinced that a solution off the beaten track checks all relevant boxes, we simply ask our clients: “why not?”

Another result of that "simulated ownership approach" is, that many a client that walks into our office wanting to buy an event, walks out with another –more effective- solution to reach his specific goal (and sometimes even with another goal). Saving him the considerable costs per head he would have to spend on an event. We strongly believe that return on investment starts with the right choice of arms. And therfore we choose to be media independent.

Stop wasting valuable money.
There is that marketing joke that from every dollar spend, fifty cents get lost. If only we knew which fifty cents..haha. Over the years we have discovered that most of these fifty cents per dollar disappear in the corridor between the board room and  room 201 where the brand is maintained, room 202 where advertising is made, room 203 where sales is managed etc.  You would not believe in how many companies, marketers en sales people chase each other through the corridors with sharpened pencils, because of cost- and profit ownership.

That is why we spend a lot of time synchronizing the focus of all parties involved. Resulting in dramatic increase of the revenues from business relationships and an evenly impressive decrease of the investment required. 

Practice what you preach.
Many companies have become so shareholder and liability driven, that their organizations have transformed into East German Excel sheets instead of dynamic, inspiring environments to excel in (or buy from).  Companies wholeselling “container concepts” like: "relevance", “entrepreneurship”, “customer satisfaction”, “CSR”, “Authenticity”, or any other Joseph Pine title, while their employees and clients experience a totally different "picture". 

I have had many more Blues Brother moments in recent years, fascinated about the gap between preaching and practicing, the staggering amounts of precious money spend on these “marketing mantra’s”, versus the relatively simple methods to really be what you preach.

In upcomming columns and white papers I will be addressing these issues in detail. But my point today is, that if you really want to raise the return on your investments in brand relationships, at least stop wasting money and practice what you preach. If you really want to be authentic and relevant, you better start by fixing the core value of your relationship with employees, clients and the world around you, instead of launhing a PR campaign arround the trees you donated to a local hospital garden.

Events can be extremely valuable in that process, because of their impact on all senses. But designing that process is key. If you like to react or share some ideas, you can reach me here.

Rob Captijn
Strategy Director at BENG!NY

At WCIT2010, Bas van den Haterd spoke to Titter founder Dom Sagola about the past, the success and the future of Twitter.

To start of your weekend with a smile, every Friday BENG! presents the best, most interesting, popular and/or funniest viral video's available on the web, hand picked by our Amsterdam friends at La Comunidad, probably the best digital agency in Europe.

1. Apple – What is iPad?

2. Mukhtars Fodselsdag 

3. Nike: Write the Future

4. YouTube turns Five

5. Olympus: PEN Giant

StrongMail histed a seminar with Brian Solis, author of the highly succesful book: Engage!. He shared his vision on the social network revolution. Here are his slides...

To announce the premiere of the latest box office hit ‘Prince of Persia, The sands of time’, Walt Disney launches the worlds first augmented reality outdoor campaign. Lucky users of Android- and iPhones who are standing near one of the outdoor filmposters can play the movie trailer and play an augmented reality game just by using their Layar browser. They can collect 50 Movie Minute value points as a reward for playing the game.

The posters of the brand new Walt Disney movie ‘Prince of Persia’ are marked with special logo that explains that you can play a unique augmented reality game with the Layar browser that is available for Anroid- and iPhone. As soon as a person who is near one of the ‘Prince of Persia’ posters starts up the Layar browser on his smartphone a gps connection is made to locate his position and the augmented reality game for ‘Prince of Persia’ automatically appears in his screen.

The beautiful Tamina from the movie speaks to the player and explains to him that he should watch the trailer and immediately enter the augmented reality game to answer 3 questions. If the player can answer all questions correctly he has earned 50 Movie Minutes value points that can be used on movieminutes.com. (A dvd can already be purcheased with 90 Movie Minutes.) The Layar also gives the player access to an augmented cinema locator to find the nearest cinema and the option to share the game with his social networks.

The campaign will be served widely on all major outdoor media networks of JCDecaux, CBS Outdoor, Hillenaar (Clearchannel), Brouwer & Partners in the Netherlands and on the locations of 100 cinemas across the country.

Advertising Agency: TAB Worldmedia, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Creative Director: Remco Vroom
Art Director: Jean-Paul Frijns
Copywriter: Remco Vroom
Illustrator: Jean-Paul Frijns
Photographer: by Walt Disney
Technical realisation Johannes la Poutre
Published: May 2010