Blogs
Sep 14, 2022
This year, marketers continue to find themselves in a tough spot as COVID-19 and other viruses such as monkeypox impact the event industry. Cancel an in-person event? Postpone it? Move it to a virtual platform? Even with limited viable options, major events scrambled and struggled to change course in an efficient and gratifying manner. In the same vein as the initial COVID outbreak in 2020, experiential marketers, brand managers, digital marketers and every practitioner in between found themselves in another round of unexpected adversity. Today, COVID is still a consideration, as attendees… more
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Sep 07, 2022
Believe it or not, a successful event organizer recently said to me, “Now that face-to-face events are back, I can forget about event tech.” He had been in the business a while, but this comment made me realize that he is probably a dinosaur living on a different planet. Or not? This organizer is my friend, and we had a fascinating debate on this subject. He said that my reaction was a bit extremist.
Sound extremist? Let me elaborate on why I don't think so. I started my events career almost 30 years ago during my Apple days. Back then, way before virtual events and event tech, I realized… more
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Aug 31, 2022
It’s hard to know what to feel when you hear “rebrand” during a company meeting. As marketers, we may feel excited about the opportunity to make changes to reach new audiences, explore new and interesting design concepts and develop a lasting communication system. In any rebrand, there are challenges to maintaining the essential parts of your company and not to stray from who you are. How much do you draw from history? Will your rebrand alienate your current client base? What happens to your internal shared identity?
It is more essential than ever for a brand to remain flexible to reach… more
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Aug 24, 2022
Some folks can get really caught up in the “grass is always greener” syndrome. I can understand that tendency, of course, as I have my fair share of lawn envy, and I mean that both metaphorically and literally. Lately, for me at least, it’s been about automobiles. It seems everywhere I go, my eye is catching that certain car that makes me salivate. After the initial emotional rush, I can usually remind myself that I currently don’t have a car payment and then take a moment to recall exactly how much I dislike those.
The point is that the greener view, more often, is an illusion. It warns… more
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Aug 16, 2022
The meeting and events industry has seen a boom in requests to create memorable moments to celebrate being together again. As in-person events come back in a major way, we’ve found there are groups that have been saving up and now have large budgets to spend on over-the-top celebrations, and there are still many that have conservative budgets. Yet, they all have the same goal: to create something that is unique and feels luxurious. How do you do that? Focus on the power of all five senses.
Tapping into the senses means going beyond thinking about the food and beverage choices you offer.… more
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Aug 10, 2022
In the past two years, there’s been a significant shift in the way consumers approach life. They’re more invested in physical and mental health, more focused on the planet’s future and more aware of how they manage their time due to working from home, among other things. As a result, consumers are reprioritizing what they buy, where they go and what they do.
This reprioritization has affected how consumers view brands. Why? At the core of it all is community. Enforced separation and digital isolation made people realize how important it is to stay connected to each other and their… more
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Aug 03, 2022
Long, long ago (2006) in an industry far, far away, Clive Humby, a British mathematician and data science entrepreneur, stated “Data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if unrefined, it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc., to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so data must be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.”
In today’s event-tech-centric world, it’s relatively easy to generate new data, but in my opinion, much harder to refine it into profitable assets that fuel your business. This is not dissimilar to oil itself.… more
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Jul 27, 2022
Today we’re talking about upcycled art, and why you should include it in your next event.
Upcycled displays are fun, eco-conscious activations that add buzz to your event while also diverting waste from the landfill. Events can be extremely wasteful, generating more waste per participant than the average person’s daily discards. On the other hand, art displays add beauty and meaning to your event while sparking conversation and giving you some good marketing.
Here are five reasons why upcycled art adds value to your event.
1. Create buzz: Upcycled art is unique and photogenic marketing. … more
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Jul 20, 2022
If you’re like me, you are probably tired of and confused by reading and listening to different opinions about the metaverse these days.
From Facebook changing their name to Meta to Disney’s CEO saying that Disney+ will be their own metaverse as well as Microsoft paying 70 billion dollars for Activision as part of their metaverse strategy, the list of big tech and media companies investing billions of dollars in the "metaverse category" continues to grow exponentially.
So what is the metaverse? Today, it is a series of different concepts but still hard to explain. Broadly speaking, the… more
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Jul 13, 2022
The following adage holds true: Everything old becomes new again—now including silent films.
According to Hootsuite, about 85% of all Facebook videos are seen and not heard. It’s not hard to imagine why. Many times, it’s not doable (or socially acceptable) to turn up the volume on a phone or laptop to listen to the audio on video content. Viewers often settle for watching video content on mute and relying on silent cues ranging from context to captions.
For marketers who create video content that only makes sense with the sound on, this presents a problem and a need for change. One way to… more
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Partner Voices
Just when it seems like Las Vegas can’t get any bigger, brighter or more exciting for groups, MGM Resorts raises the bar again. The company continues to invest and innovate across its portfolio of Las Vegas resorts, with new attractions and upgraded experiences for attendees of all interests.
Remodeled Guest Rooms
MGM Grand is the largest single hotel in the world with over 5,000 guest rooms and an 850,000-square-foot conference center. It is home to the newly remodeled MGM Grand Studio Tower—700 reimagined guest rooms with a fun mid-century vibe. Nearby, the iconic New York-New York Las more