08:00 AM – 08:25 AM
Breakfast and Audience Objectives Input
We will use this typically productivity dead zone to not only allow attendees to meet and network with each other but also to capture their input about their most pressing issues and objectives for the day. We’ll use this in the “Hot Topic Conversation Rotation” at the end of the day.
08:25 AM – 08:30 AM
Welcome
08:30 AM – 09:15 AM
Keynote Briefing │ Experiential Marketing: The State of the Discipline
The world is not changing – it’s changed. Effective marketing has moved from volume to quality, from impression to engagement, and from monologue to dialogue. Leading brand marketers are mapping out a bold new future using every tool at their disposal – new kinds of creative development and storytelling, technology (online and off), unusual cross-channel reach strategies and paradigm-changing next practices. Experiential marketing lies at the heart of this change; it’s the world’s oldest form of marketing revitalized, empowered, and relied upon by both B2C and B2B brands to drive everything from brand awareness to point-of-purchase.
Kickoff this extraordinary day of education and networking with one of the marketing world’s most recognized brand experience strategists, who will provide an overview of the state of experience marketing and its role in today’s brand communications mix. Included will be fresh data from EventView 2009, the industry’s largest and longest running global experience marketing study of the value and utility of the discipline as seen through the eyes of brand marketers around the world from the MPI Foundation and the Event Marketing Institute.
09:15 AM – 10:15 AM
Experience Marketing vs. Traditional Event Marketing (Making the Evolution)
Experience marketing is event marketing taken to the next level. Marketers interested in moving from passive monologue to active dialogue with customers are acknowledging the central premise of truly effective experience marketing: you must enable an individual to author or co-author their own experience with the brand, or else risk having her or him tune you out completely. Moving away from the traditional event model to a higher level of power takes a shift in thinking in strategy, creative, tactics, team collaboration and other areas of the marketing function. This session will walk attendees through the essential components of effective experience marketing and the operational changes necessary to move towards a truly experiential business model.
10:15 AM – 10:30 AM
Break
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Integrated Marketing Strategy: Experience Marketing's Role in Integrated Marketing Communications
The Holy Grail of marketing – Integrated Marketing Communications – is a longstanding challenge for CMOs and other senior marketers. Practitioners know that it’s far easier said than done. But recent advances in strategy for event and experience marketing provide one possible approach to realizing the promise of IMC that until now has gone unnoticed. This session will focus on the natural ability for events to drive an integrated marketing model, choreographing creative and execution across multiple internal teams and agency support to achieve a true IMC model. Our presenter will include case studies from one of the world’s largest IT organizations, Cisco, and the highlights from an upcoming article on the subject from Medill University’s Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
360 Degree Perspective: The Agency, The Brand, The Media
Moving towards the Experience Marketing model means changing how strategy and ideas are created, handled and executed. It’s also an opportunity to change bad habits, upset old notions and re-work communication channels to streamline the marketing process. All of this activity means change – including the model for who does what and how -- which is a unique challenge and opportunity for brands and their agencies. This session lays down the ground rules for collaboration between brands and their agencies as they move towards Experience Marketing.
12:30 PM – 01:15 PM
Networking Lunch
01:15 PM - 02:15 PM
Metrics, Metrics, Metrics: Baking Measurement into Event Programs and Portfolios
Under intense scrutiny from the C-suite, marketers and sales leaders are re-thinking the models, methods and application of measurement. It’s a smart play, especially during a troubled economic period: by tying investment to output backed up by hard numbers, your justifying the budget and put yourself in a position to ask for more. This session will provide an overview of new experience marketing measurement approaches at the event and portfolio levels, also touching on how this information can drive the strategic changes you need to make in the next six months to improve your results.
02:15 PM – 02:30 PM
Break
02:30 PM – 03:30 PM
The Experiential & Digital Marriage: Next Generation Brand-building
As the marketing world rebalances away from the traditional ad-centric model and uses new technology and measurement techniques to understand consumers and reach them where they live, work and play, the joining of live experiences and digital marketing is inevitable. What’s interesting though is the new capability that can be realized by bringing these two disciplines together and from that, a relationship building power unprecedented in marketing until now. Join this panel for examples and insights into the next practices around the deployment of digital and experiential programs that portend a whole new approach to brand experience marketing leading to bottom-line results.
03:30 PM – 04:30 PM
Hot Topic Conversation Rotation
Earlier in the day the attendees identified their biggest concerns and their objectives for the day. We will consolidate that information into a small number of subjects and convene breakouts focused on those points. The exact format in terms of number of subjects and length of discussions will be dependent on how many different subjects surface from the input. No matter what, we will provide a template for structuring the breakout sessions to generate conclusions from each discussion for sharing with the larger group. Speakers and panelists from the day will attend and participate in breakouts appropriate to their areas of expertise.
04:30 PM – 05:00 PM
Where Do We Go From Here? Audience-driven Closing Session
In this all-audience interactive session the host will review the highlights of the day through the lens of directions for moving forward, with comments from the appropriate guest presenters and panelists. Finally, we will close by summarizing some key desires of the attendees for information that can be provided in the future, both as e-follow up and in future AMA events.