In the following weeks, we will introduce you to the Eventex finalists – those extraordinary eventprofs who are competing for a Global Event Award. You will meet them in person come January at the special gala ceremony at Croke park but first, we would like to offer you a brief preview of their projects and products that transform events into cutting-edge experiences.
Best Brand Engagement Event Finalists
Allerhande Kerstfestival by Xsaga
11 – 13 December, 2015 | Utrecht, Netherlands
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Allerhande Kerstfestival took place at the Railway museum in Utrecht, Netherlands. The festival was organized by Xsaga for Albert Heijn (AH), the largest Dutch supermarket chain, in order to assert their market position as the premium destination for Christmas shopping.
In the days before Christmas, Albert Heijn treated ‘Holland’ to an event, which combines the best of a trendy food-festival with a cosy Christmas-market. AH wanted to inspire and engage their customers in a personal and non-traditional way. For the first time in its history, the retailer positioned the event in the centre of the marketing mix and created its own unique branded content.
The stands of the festival were filled with products from AH and their main suppliers. Visitors were shown how to use and combine them without hassle. There were farmers, fishermen, butchers and famous chefs, so visitors could meet ‘the people behind the products’. The audience was further engaged to participate in workshops like wine-tasting and cooking.
To complete the Christmas feeling, matching entertainment was also provided. The historical railway-station and its surroundings were dressed beautifully to underline the spirit of the holidays. In line with the festival’s motto – ‘everything for a carefree Christmas’, visitors of the festival could compose their own Christmas menu, pre-order the food, and learn how to prepare it easily. The site was divided into different areas, so people could walk easily through it and follow the different courses of the menu.
An independent market research agency interviewed the visitors. Respondents rated the festival with an average of 8.5 from a perfect 10! The results showed that Allerhande Kerstfestival achieved what it set out to do. 81% of visitors would recommend the festival to others. 2 out of 3 respondents say the festival exceeded their expectations, because it was bigger, more diverse and cheaper than they expected. 83% would go next year and 81% say it gave them ideas for Christmas and their festive dinner. 67% of the respondents described the festival as cosy, festive, and with a good atmosphere. Visitors were also impressed by the tasty food and drinks, the good organization, and found the experience inspiring, surprising, and diverse. More than half of the respondents think more positive about Albert Heijn and will visit the stores. Almost 6 out of 10 respondents bought something during the festival.
The Allerhande Kerstfestival was part of a big marketing campaign, which was focused on Christmas. The revenue in 2016 increased by 3%. While it’s hard to measure the influence this festival had on this increase, it’s safe to say the event contributed greatly.
Read full entry here
Bank of Ireland Junk Kouture by Bank of Ireland
October, 2015 – April, 2016 | Dublin, Derry, Castlebar & Limerick, Ireland
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Bank of Ireland’s Junk Kouture is a national contest which encourages young designers in second level education to create striking couture designs and impressive works of wearable art from everyday junk. With nearly 3k entries, it is the largest student competition in the country. Using their branch network, Bank of Ireland was able to engage local schools and encourage students to participate in the Junk Kouture competition.
Junk Kouture stands out not only based on the volume of participants and year on year growth (2911 students, 1124 entries, 18% growth in entries and a reach of over 50% of schools nationwide in 2016). Innovation and creativity is at the core of the competition. The aim of the contest is to create designs solely made from junk and recycled material. This ensures the event addresses the creative elements of the school curriculum but also encourages an awareness of environmental issues and the potential of using recycled materials in a range of ways.
In order to ensure maximum value and to recognise the effort by students, over 1100 entries were narrowed down to the top 320 designs. 4 Regional finals were then held throughout the country, with each regional final enabling 80 students to progress to the grand final in the 3 Arena in April. The final event in the 3 Arena has a much broader remit than the final show.
The contest’s online voting app provides a very strong audience participation element to the event, with over 1 million online votes registered. This really encourages a community engagement element to the competition, which is at the heart of Bank of Ireland’s strategy. Participants and audience members can also avail of events such as fashion shows, silent disco, games, demos, celebrity meet and greets, etc.
Junk Kouture aims to inspire and ignite passion in teenagers while at the same time subtly educating them about the importance of recycling and reusing waste. Over the last five years, the contest has established itself as the premier recycled fashion competition for teenagers throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. In 2015 Junk Kouture extended its creative platform to Scotland.
Each event was highly successful and as a result Bank of Ireland’s partnership with Junk Kouture is fully embedded in their Youth Marketing strategy. From a PR perspective the contest led to 15 TV appearances, 700 newspaper publications, reached approximately 11.9 million people, almost 1.2 million online reaches and hits, while school participation rates increased by 102% with no less than 384 schools participating in the event.
Read full entry here
Global Journey – Detox Day by The Oval Office bvba
25 July, 2016 | Brussels, Belgium
Detox Day is an event organized by The Oval Office bvba and Global Journey (Tomorrowlands’ in-house travel agency). Tomorrowland (TML) is one of the world’s largest and most notable music festivals for electronic music. The idea for Detox Day was to offer customers one day to ‘chillax’ after 3 days of non-stop partying at Tomorrowland and before flying back home on Tuesday. The perfect “landing” before taking off again.
The first edition of Detox Day, 25 July 2016 in Brussels, was planned as a post-festival experience without big ass stages, without DJ-s, and, yes, without alcohol. Just being zen, enjoying healthy food and restoring all senses after the overload of electronic & extravagant stimuli.
A minimalist, Asian-like, purifying white look & feel in the middle of the Brussels’ green woods was picked as the backdrop to contrast the overwhelming design solutions of the Tomorrowland festival. No timetables or programs – all games and animations were permanently available for everybody all over the site. An after-care open air spa was provided with massages, manicure, yoga, Tai Chi, and even old school barbershops. Artists and musicians with only acoustic & soft instruments, were moving around in between the chilling people. Free wifi (in the woods) was also provided to stimulate worldwide user generated social media coverage of Detox Day and for posting TML pictures.
Detox Day was unique in that no other similar event of that scale and that kind of target exists. Instead of artificial scenography people got a nature decor, creating the ultimate zen look & feel. In place of the usual festival was only fruit, vegetables, juices and (vitamin) water. Another highlight was the gong ritual: every 30 minutes 3 geisha’s slowly made their way through the people to hit the big central gong followed by a soft-voiced message to announce things like yoga classes, buffets, wifi details, the timetable of the busses, etc. At the end people started following them in a silent procession to take pictures or film the ritual.
The outcome was 1.500 participants showed up after 3 days of non-stop partying. Feedback from both the client and participants was very positive and the consensus is that the concept worked and people got to relax. Media impact was bigger than expected, mostly because the festival was already intensively covered), and Detox Day got great national press & television coverage. The Second edition is in progress!
Read full entry here
The Floating Gaardens by Momentum Worldwide
30 July – 21 August, 2016 | London, UK
The Floating Gaardens is a brand engagement event produced by Momentum Worldwide for Hoegaarden Brewery, the producer of a premium, craft beer with incredible taste and heritage.
The event was conceived as an engaging sensorial bar experience, all taking place on a unique barge, The Floating Gaardens sailed around London’s canals, becoming a highly talked about summer destination. The purpose was to celebrate Hoegaarden’s use of the finest natural ingredients and to stand out from the competition.
Knowing and understanding the target audience was key to making this a great brand engagement event. Driven by curiosity, they’re real individuality-loving culture vultures. East London is their hub, but they love green spaces that let them escape the city. They embody the London scene and are fussy about their brand-world. Only brands that talk their language, in their comfort zones are worthy. This being a difficult-to-impress audience, we had to create a unique experience that celebrated the beer and its natural ingredients, and gave our audience the chance to try Hoegaarden in a cool inspiring social space.
It started with a pre-launch consisted of a press release, picture story and Facebook LIVE with Hoegaarden fan and rapper Professor Green. As part of the supporting social media campaign, the Hoegaarden Facebook and Instagram channels were relaunched. All followed by an exclusive media-launch party that positioned The Floating Gaardens as the destination of the summer, to drive bookings ahead of the opening. Press coverage was secured in a number of titles, including 10 pre-event listings and 7 media launch night pieces.
The barge was a bespoke solution that was built from scratch, to develop a completely fresh and creative idea that delivered a unique experience and elevated Hoegaarden’s speciality beer status. It set sail around East London’s waterways, an experience designed to open minds to new ideas, sounds, sights and tastes in the midst of busy urban life.
Exclusive entry to the barge sailings was awarded through an online public promotion. The Floating Gaardens invited lucky winners to experience an hour-long voyage, during which they enjoyed freshly poured Hoegaarden paired with delicious canapés created by celebrity chef Valentine Warner that perfectly complemented the subtle citrus and zingy coriander notes of the beer – all in a lush, nature-themed setting which provided a refreshing moment of sanctuary.
Guests also experienced a sensorial ‘Sound Scape Gaarden’, created in conjunction with the local artist community and the Oxford University Crossmodal Research Laboratory. Carefully crafted sounds enhanced particular tasting notes of Hoegaarden and its natural botanicals, playing with guests’ senses to alter the taste of the beer and accentuate its sweetness and bitterness – helping them appreciate and enjoy the depths of flavour as part of their brand immersion. There were also various consumer touch points along the way to continually drive awareness and brand reappraisal, including a bespoke ticketing website, collateral, onboard experiences and giveaways for guests to take home.
The Floating Gaardens was a completely unique and engaging experience. The activity was incredibly well received and generated a very impressive set of results. Total number of promotion entrants was 4,845, and another 66,000 reached, based on the approx. number of people seeing the boat over the activation at mooring location and along the canal. Coverage was secured in over 30 titles, including Time Out London, plus national and online coverage in Telegraph.co.uk, MailOnline and Tatler.co.uk, for a total of 41 pieces. As part of the supporting social media campaign, the Hoegaarden Facebook and Instagram channels were relaunched, with 35,000 reached organically on Facebook, 51,000 organic views of Pro Green Facebook LIVE, 230,119 promoted views of Facebook LIVE replay, and 483 mentions of #floatinggaardens across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, reaching over 16.3k consumers over all channels. Total reach (organic + paid) was 943,574.
Read full entry here
The winners and runner-ups will be revealed at the gala ceremony at Croke Park, 24 January 2017. Register now and join the league of extraordinary event professionals!
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