Corporate events should look at luxury brands for inspiration…
Regardless of sector, conferences are often the same. The cookie-cutter approach to venues, layouts, content delivery and production are, too often, dull.
The excuse for this lack of innovation is usually because the event is business-to-business, and therefore needs to be ‘professional’. Those that attend aren’t people, they are delegates, and are treated as so.
But just because someone is attending on behalf of their company, and they have a job title, it doesn’t make them any less human. They should be engaged just like consumers are, afterall the same rules apply regardless of someone’s occupation. In other words, if more conferences were to adopt a B2B2C mindset, then event attendance would soar.
And there is no better place to look for this inspiration than the luxury sector. These brands engage consumers as fans, followers, customers and ambassadors. They create experiences that surprise and delight both those that will buy from them and those that aspire to.
But how is it done? And what is transferable when it comes to more traditional business events?
The first place to look is London’s Bond Street. It is the home of luxury brands, and goes way beyond a traditional high street of shops. Each store has a facade that acts as an experience in itself, particularly at Christmas time, resulting in tourists and those that can’t afford to buy from these brands embarking on a pilgrimage just to take photos and share them on social media. Now imagine this level of attention to detail and artistic creativity was used on the aesthetic of a conference. Shops don’t have to look like shops, so why do conferences have to look like conferences?
You’ll then notice queues outside most of these stores, and that’s not because there is a flash sale and they’ve reached capacity – it’s the opposite. These retailers are creating an experience that is personalised, multi-sensory and memorable. You walk into any luxury house and the music, the perfume, the layout, the lighting and even the food and beverage provided have all been carefully considered to marry together to create a unique cocktail for each individual. Business events could, and should, do the same.
Luxury brands also go beyond their stores when creating experiences, be it catwalks, shopping mall activations or pop-up environments, but whatever they do and wherever they do it creativity and originality is at the heart. Venue choice, set design and content delivery is an art form. And so it’s time for conferences to be just as artistic in order to create truly memorable moments.
