Re-inventing an annual corporate conference

CHALLENGE

Breathe new life into a business conference that was starting to lose its sizzle

Growing from a small annual gathering sponsored by Fidelity Group Cayman, Cayman Business Outlook was at one point the highlight of the Cayman corporate calendar. But perhaps through lack of innovation, rather than by the quality of the speakers, attendance had plateaued and the consortium of organisers were finding it harder to justify the effort of hosting the event every year.

The challenge for BB&P was to take the conference to a new level, positioning it over the long-term as a truly world-class event. This would be measured in terms of overall perception, attraction to sponsors, speakers and attendees.

SOLUTION

Looking carefully at every aspect of the conference from both sides of the host/delegate fence we first identified key areas to address. These included the event’s brand identity, naming, marketing and promotion, venue design through to overall delegate experience.

The first major change was ‘Cayman Business Outlook’ became ‘Cayman Economic Outlook’, or ‘CEO’. This better reflected the general shift in aspiration , and audience, for the event.

We developed a brand identity system that would work more coherently across a myriad of touch-points, adapt from year-to-year in terms of theme, but at the same time build strong brand associations. An aggressive offline, online and social media marketing campaign drove traffic to a dedicated web site where delegates could pre-book their attendance. The CEO communications team worked especially hard to apply the brand system coherently across virtual and real environments creating in the end a highly-professional audience experience.

RESULTS

CEO quickly became a familiar handle and the pre-event marketing linked to seamless online fulfilment delivered far higher paid attendance numbers. Overall, however, the response from delegates, speakers, sponsor partners and the media far outstripped initial expectations.