Silver Anvil
COMPANY NEWS, EVENT INDUSTRY
The Cookie CAREavan tour for DoubleTree by Hilton was awarded the Silver Anvil Award from PRSA! Congrats to the incredible team that worked on the project.
As anyone who has worked with us knows, we love producing events and mobile media tours here at Decibel, and it is great to work with such an outstanding team. Ketchum Public Relations, Digital Royalty, Gensler, OMD, and all of the partners made it a great tour. We were thrilled to be along for the ride!
The Cookie CAREavan tour won the Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), in the category of Marketing Consumer Services Travel/Tourism. The tour also won a PRSA Award of Excellence in the category of Events and Observances, 7 days or more (business services). This is the third Silver Anvil for David Sonntag as a producer and the first for Decibel Management.
Congrats Clairemont!
EVENT INDUSTRY
Congrats to our friend Dana Hughens and her team over at Clairemont Communications on today s NCPRSA InSpire Awards. In light of the good work, this song is dedicated to you! Snap I ve Got the Power
National Small Business Week Conference and Meeting
BACKSTAGE, COMPANY NEWS, EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS
Just wrapped up the 2012 National Small Business Week Conference and Meetings in Washington, DC. This year s event featured a number of great sessions at the Mandarin Oriental, along with offsite events at the U.S. Department of State and the White House.
Along with these events, we also rolled out our touchscreen kiosks for the Microsoft Lounge. These were fully wrapped with graphics and networked for both internet as well as printing. Be on the lookout for these at future events, they were a huge hit both with the client as well as the attendees!
As with all of our events, it takes some great partners to produce an event of this caliber. Thanks to the teams at EventEQ, Legacy Scenic, Radium, the staff at the Mandarin, and countless other folks that all came together to build out the event.
Royal Wedding
EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS, TIPS & TRICKS
There are thousands of pieces that go into an event this size, and from the coverage, it certainly looked as if they nailed them all. Instead of focusing on the overall event, there was one piece that really did stand out in my mind, the floral, and more specifically, the trees inside the Abbey.
According to Professional Florist, Shane Connolly designed the arrangements from flowers to the trees throughout Westminster Abbey. Instead of a lavish design with out-of season arrangements, the flowers were all seasonal and British.
The article from Professional Florist below gives the detail.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, eschewed ostentatious out-of-season flowers in favour of a simple bouquet made mainly of lily of the valley for her wedding to Prince William.
The seasonal British flowers, designed by florist Shane Connolly, were a nod to the less than lavish wedding that the couple said they hoped to plan. Although a reported 50,000 spent decorating Westminster Abbey with field maple and hornbeam trees suggested the couple didn t have things all their own way.
All the trees and flowers were selected by the Middletons and arranged by Shane Connolly s team. Each choice came with a reference to the language of flowers. Lily of the valley is associated with trustworthyness. Maple suggests humility and hornbeams are linked to resilience.
Shane Connolly s web site bears the By Royal Appointment to HRH The Prince of Wales crest, and promotes the florist as constantly striving to delight its clients.
PR Week Award
COMPANY NEWS, EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS
Congrats to the team at Ketchum DC and their client DoubleTree by Hilton on the Product Brand Development of the Year award! We loved being a part of the tour and the award couldn t have gone to a better team! For their PR Week submission, Ketchum included a great writeup of the tour itself. You can see it on the PR Week Award Site, or read on below.
Since 1986, DoubleTree by Hilton has been giving a warm chocolate chip cookie to every guest upon check-in as a symbol of the brand s enhanced care culture. Just in time to celebrate the sweet treat s 25th anniversary, Ketchum was tasked with raising DoubleTree by Hilton s brand awareness. The agency recognized that the cookie was central to the brand s story and organized a summer campaign in which the Cookie CAREavan, a branded food truck (a first among hotel chains), traveled more than 15,000 miles coast to coast through 50 cities distributing and donating a total of 250,000 chocolate chip cookies. Ketchum leveraged existing events, including ComicCon in San Diego and pride festivals in Chicago and Key West, FL. The firm also reached out to mayors and government officials, securing July as the DoubleTree by Hilton Chocolate Chip Cookie Month in Texas and Tennessee. Cities including San Francisco, Atlanta, and Detroit named the CAREavan s arrival as DoubleTree by Hilton Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. A Facebook tab displayed the route, relevant tweets, and sweepstakes for free hotel stays, which resulted in nearly 29,000 new likes and more than 10,000 sweepstake entries. In addition, Foursquare check-ins at CAREavan stops awarded Hilton HHonors points. The business with the most #SweetBreaks tweets won 250 cookies hand delivered to the office. Results directly attributed to the campaign include a 200{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} jump in unaided brand awareness, a 15{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} revenue boost, and a 125{04d9822e7d95da125d508d8e1efbcf2edc79acd8aec1f0bbdcbd6a6f684f9bb3} increase in HHonors enrollment, all over 2010. The campaign was recognized in 1,833 media outlets including Today, Good Morning America, and USAToday.com. Mashable declared the CAREavan No. 1 Food Truck for Social Media Marketing. One judge praised the campaign as brilliant and bigtime. Another judge agreed, saying, The effort put a fresh new twist on the food truck concept and blended in a terrific cause element.
Blank Canvas
COMPANY NEWS, EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS
It ended up taking a week, and a few minor miracles, but we were able to get our new summer road show vehicle to the fabricator. I must hand it to both Utilimaster and Whitney over at Polaris who helped pull this off! A few more photos of the delivery after the jump
It was a rainy day in New Berlin, WI but the flatbed finally made the 200 mile journey from Wakarusa, IN. The truck is now in the fabrication bay and we are taking measurements and developing a template for the custom build as well as graphics. Look for more photos as the build progresses!
3 Innovative Ways to Find and Book Cool Speakers for Any Event
EVENT INDUSTRY
We re not gonna waste your time, here: no one needs to tell you how to Google how to find speakers for your event . And doing that will turn up all the basics: databases of speaking professionals (Gigmaster!), speakers associations, blah blah blah. But there are plenty of fascinating, confident, articlate people that don t speak for a living and are outside . Here a few unique ideas on how to find and connect with them.
Look up Inventors on Kickstarter
There are a lot of very interesting people in the world who are driven to create very interesting things. And interesting people know that they have a strong chance of funding their good ideas on Kickstarter. We re gonna go out on a limb here and say that every one of those people is a potential event speaker. Since Kickstarter is geared towards helping potential funders find projects that they re inspired to support, the site is segmented by categories dare we say topics? making it easy to narrow down a list of people who might add some spice to your event would, in fact, probably welcome the opportunity to promote whatever they re working on. Plus, many Kickstarter inventors and creatives make videos in which they explain their projects, so you can get a sense of how well they string a few words together.
Search for Speeches on Slideshare
If someone s got a speech on Slideshare, it means they ve already spoken in front of a group of people, and may be willing to do so again. It doesn t necessarily mean they re good at it, but the upshot here is that you can preview their speech before you even contact them, and get a pretty solid idea what the content would be like.
Hire a Consultant or Bureau
Companies like The Speaker Group specialize in having a wide body of speaker resources at their disposal, and they can help you nail someone down. Needless to say, this is a great option if you have a budget, need to find multiple speakers or don t have the time to suss out the right fit.
Yes, but also this: More Best Practices for Building an Event Website
EVENT INDUSTRY
The good folks over at Planningpod.com recently posted a nifty infographic detailing 10 best practices for building event websites. We couldn t agree more with their assessment (no, seriously: put the name and date of the event on every page, people), and we felt inspired to add a couple of additional event website must-dos from our own experience.
Post a Schedule
Attendees should never be left wondering what a day at your event will look like, and for day-long events in particular, it s not only polite to post a schedule, it s vital. And you can t just toss any schedule up there in any format, either.
You know when you go to a restaurant website, and the only thing you want to see is a menu, a location, opening hours and maybe a picture of the place, but instead you get a downloadable PDF menu that won t open in your browser? And you wonder why the owners of the restaurant hate you so much? Approach event schedules on your website the same way you wish those restaurant owners approached their online menus. Schedules should always be fully listed on the site without having to download a document, with a PDF version offered as an optional downloadable backup. PDFs open very unreliably, and if you toss this meatless bone out there, you re asking for trouble and a shorter guest list.
Who else is going?
Part of the allure of doing anything socially-constructed is the chance to hang out with people you like and the opportunity to rub elbows with people you admire. Potential attendees want to know two things: are any of their friends going? And: are any celebrities or industry luminaries going?
In terms of tackling the first one, we suggest leveraging social media. There are a few ways to skin this cat:
1) Add a hashtag-based feed to your event site allowing Twitter users to trumpet their attendance plans.
2) Pull in a list of I m going responses from Facebook, which will allow fence-sitters to get a sense of the guest list and see if any of their pals are going.
3) Add a tweet / post function as the last step of your registration process, prompting people to tell their friends and followers about their plans.
In terms of hot shot attendees, the solution is even easier: humble-brag about it on your site.
Check color contrast and Accessibility
When you re planning an event, you re typically catering to a wide array of people, and provisions need to be made for everyone. It s old news that the venue itself should be accessible to older attendees and the differently-abled, but what about your website? Check that the color contrast between the website background color and the text color meets at least WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) AA compatibility standards (AAA being the highest). That way, people with poor eyesight will have an easier time navigating your online event informatoin.
If your firm doesn t have a tech on hand, you can check WCAG contrast yourself with this handy add-on for Firefox.
Whatever
EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS, PERMITS
We have been watching with fascination the Whatever USA advertising campaign, event, experiential activation, promotion and commercial film shoot from Anheuser Busch. Most of us have seen the commercials from Bud Light about the fictional town Whatever USA. The brand marketing team launched a series of commercials about the town, and held a contest for 1,100 lucky winners to visit for three days of fun- all expenses paid.
Permitting:
Whatever USA was built in the actual town of Crested Butte, CO. From the beginning, there were challenges reported about the permitting process. The Town Council ended up approving the event, but it was after heated debate from the citizens of the town. The standard permitting fees start at $10,000 here, and to secure the special event AB originally offered $250,000 to the town. After the debate began to build in late August, Bud Light upped the offer to $500,000, including a promise to fix any damage and restore the town to its original condition.
The Controversy:
The controversy began with the build of the event. The event team began construction of the fences and infrastructure prior to getting the official approval from the Town Council. After an 8.5-hour debate at the town council, the meeting ended with a temporary permit for construction to begin. Once locals began seeing the extent the complaints started rolling in. Citizens felt a lack of communication, even though the marketing firm and Anheuser Busch have been working with the town since last spring, including producing a 100 page operational plan, however residents did not learn about the extent until weeks before the event.
The Build:
So what did the build include? In addition to the full concert build, the main avenue in Crested Butte was painted blue, the iconic avenue was adorned with blue paint, blue light poles, Bud Light branded fencing, custom archways and signs, as well as a host of other branding elements. This also included a giant blue gorilla, Bud Light Blue busses, oversized props, etc. In addition, local retail establishments were only serving Bud Light throughout the event.
Issues and Cleanup:
Many issues were compounded when Bud Light ran out of wristbands for local residents to attend. In fact, they had to distribute permission slips for people to go to work. After the event, heavy rains caused the paint to run, and plans had to change for the resurface. In fact, they had to spend an extra $40,000 to remove an 1/8 of the road to re-pave Elk Avenue.
Final Thoughts:
I am a fan of this event, and applaud the marketing team and the client for pushing the boundaries with this event. Were there issues? Could communication be better? Will there be a host of key learnings coming out of this activation? Cost overruns? Yes to all, but it looks like an overall win, especially for content and the advertising that will come out of this activation for the next year. As always, content is king.
Decibel Management Custom Interior Signage Design and Build
BACKSTAGE, EVENT INDUSTRY, LIVE EVENTS, TRADE SHOW
Decibel Management was hired to design, develop and install custom graphics, signs, trade show pieces as well as custom paint to complete the Marketing Center at 555 12th Street in Washington, D.C. We worked with a great team at Legacy Scenic and Productions, as well as Matrix Frame USA to complete the install. The original concept was from the architecture firm Gensler, as well as Cushman & Wakefield, along with the construction team of HITT Contracting.
555 12th Street Marketing Center- Behind the Scenes with Decibel Management from Decibel Management on YouTube.