We started work on Women In Touch’s annual ‘Touch’ Conference in July 2008. The theme for the conference was ‘Get into the driving seat of your life’, and our aim, amongst advising on branding and experience-staging, was two fold:
- Marketing for the event, which had to deliver a 100% increase in attendance.
- Increased advocacy.
So, here’s what we did:
Marketing: we carried out a full rebranding of the charity, which was interpreted on their website, social media profiles, video production, advertising, emails and internal correspondance. The entire rebrand moved the organisation from a public event to a personal experience – a ‘Touch’, as per the conference name.
We identified their current audience hives, and carried out a multi-touch marketing campaign across all the medias listed above. A viral video was specially created to increase suspense and personal touch with the audience.
A large part of our success in our marketing through Social Media was not to overestimate the level at which women, typically aged 35-54, wanted to engage with us online. We knew that the most effective use of Social Media would be through spreading the viral video that we commissioned through Facebook, and tagging news onto that. So that’s what we did. It saved resources that would otherwise be wasted, and saved face, because we didn’t create any Social Media ghost towns by overestimating them.
Experientialising: our usage of Social Media enabled us to create suspense (a priori experience). We then employed the golden rule of situational experience: staging an alternate reality. We turned the auditorium into a feminine Top Gear set, and commissioned high quality car visuals to create a very engaging backdrop to the stage. Each area of the auditorium was ‘zoned’, much like Disney Land: the garage, the pitstop, the finish line, etc.
Suspense was held throughout the 3-day conference by staging daily high points, climaxing with the car giveaway on the final night. The atmosphere was thick enough to cut with a knife. All of this increased advocacy, because everyone who came away, either from the whole weekend, or just one meeting, was blown away.
Result: Our marketing efforts increased pre-registrations by over 100% and total attendance by 100%. 33% of the growth in registrations was from Social Media. With the increase ticket price, turnover for the event was over 200% from their previous year.
