How we used content to engage virtual audiences
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Virtual events
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Branding
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Video
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Content creation
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Motion graphics
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Project Management
Challenge
The global pandemic and restrictions placed upon public gatherings would place an instant hold on Hitachi’s in-person events. Hitachi relies on face-to-face events to connect partners and customers, provide critical solution updates, engage new audiences and generate new sales leads.
A virtual events platform would renew Hitachi’s events instantly but within a saturated virtual marketplace and increasing demands made on people’s time, Hitachi would need to rise above the noise and present an innovative, market-leading online event.
Hitachi approached us to develop a creative solution to re-engage audiences for their inaugural EMEA virtual event and deliver a seamless content-led brand experience.
Solution
We had recognised that ‘zoom fatigue’ had started to set in; that simply transferring the live experience online doesn’t work and failing to act on this would lead to poor engagement and fewer attendees. We also saw an opportunity to simplify and consolidate keynote content through remote pre-recorded sessions.
We recommended to the Hitachi team an alternative event agenda limiting keynotes to fifteen minutes and explained how this approach would appeal to time-poor attendees. We created design assets to support a six-week event marketing campaign from animated GIF banner advertising and clear call to action to co-branded HTML email campaigns to specifically target audience groups with relatable event content.
Advising Hitachi on how best to properly engage virtual attendees, exploring different content broadcast options and utilising our exclusive remote film recording solution, we set about drafting an extensive recording schedule and worked to support speakers across the globe in the preparation and capture of HD quality keynote presentations.
The end result was an innovative schedule of exclusive event content delivered in flexible, bite-sized pieces and an extensive portfolio of branded assets to secure Hitachi placement across social and traditional media to drive adoption. The event would also benefit from faultless keynote presentations with crisp audio and full screen content unhindered by poor internet connections and limitations of video conference apps.
Results
By creating relatable event marketing content, creating a consistent and recognisable brand identity and reshaping the event structure to meet the changing needs of virtual events attendees, we helped Hitachi achieve over 2,000 registrations in six weeks.
Virtual events are just one of the ways a varied and considered live events programme can deliver strategic objectives and engage people and brands at a time we unable to meet face to face. For Hitachi, this approach will provide them with a more comprehensive hybrid events plan for the future.
