Event Organization: A Niche for IT Solutions

I decided to share the details of the niche, which has a good potential for IT. I am talking about the organization of events or, as it is customary to call this type of activity, - events. I know this niche for several years, in fact, at BIG we are committed to providing all kinds of IT services in it. So I wanted to share some personal discoveries and observations with Habr, what to do for an IT-employee and what, in fact, potential.

Marketing is actively looking for new solutions.

You need to understand that for business, events are marketing. And marketing is an extremely versatile sphere in the breadth of its interests. Its participants are constantly searching for new solutions and are doing it very actively. Large budgets are concentrated here, so there is a reason for activity.
The crisis, which affected most sectors of the economy and led to severe restrictions, did not reduce the capacity of the marketing communications market. Data on its real values ​​are highly fragmented. Generalized statistics from open sources are presented in the form of a diagram.


The dynamics of the marketing communications market in Russia, incl. BTL segment (according to the board of RAMU)

The most attractive market segment for our company is BTL-event marketing. Therefore, the dynamics of total budgets in this area is given special attention. If you look at the volumes of financing projects, then this type of marketing crisis has only benefited. Because no one dares to save on what has proved its effectiveness in a falling market.

So, the ongoing search for new solutions and a lot of money that determine the atmosphere of the market for marketing communications in Russia is a good reason for IT-inventive guys to come here and take their toll. Enriching events with new solutions.

Why BTL-Event Marketing Is Promising

Voluntarily thrusting my head into the jaws of the dragon Having decided to realize my IT interests in BTL-event marketing, I began to delve into the kitchen of event friends. And he discovered two terms that are promising because of their proximity to IT - this is the "mechanics of the event" and "gamification" (game-fiction). In both cases, IT specialists have a reason to take a direct part.

Game-fiction has become a common passion for society. A lot of areas are involved here, from the creators of services and applications to business models that are increasingly being made gamified. Mechanics from computer games fill the familiar life of not only ordinary people, but also eventors. The latter, by virtue of their functionality, catch the trends of society earlier than others and actively use game-fiction in the mechanics of their events.

In order to attract attention, eventors are ready for anything

About the "WOW-effect" and the fact that it supplanted and replaced a lot in our minds, you can not say more precisely Pelevin: "Man has not been a wolf to man anymore. Man to man is not even an image maker, not a dealer, not a killer and not an exclusive distributor, as modern sociologists suggest. Everything is much worse and simpler. Man to man, wow - and not to man, but just as wow. ”

Since the time of “Generation P” in the advertising kitchen, in essence, nothing has changed. All participants in this market are in search of technology that will provide a "WOW-effect" to people, in general, and visitors to their events, in particular. The “WOW effect” is a real Fata Morgana event, because customers want this from them - WOW.

From time to time, technologies appear that can provide a similar effect. Eventors continuously monitor markets for the emergence of such technologies, gather at annual conferences to review and discuss the potential of new products. International research statistics show that 87% of the event advocates the use of digital technologies at events. Because they understand - their inclusion in the mechanics of the event automatically means transferring the customer’s wow-mood to their reputation. This is the second goal for which eventors make their titanic efforts. The first is banal and eternal - money!

Rotating in the market of BTL-event marketing since 2011, I managed to summarize my personal observations.

Observation 1. Everyone is trying to come up with something new, but few succeed.
Therefore, in practice, the "WOW-effect" event is trying to bring to life quite uniformly - due to the ever-increasing scope of the show. For example, the number of plasmas recently involved in projects is amazing. But it turns out boring.

Speaking at events, for example, in Crocus Expo, where there are many participants, super-brands - Nissan, Toyota, Infiniti, etc. I’m watching the next competition in the number of TVs and the spectacularity of auto-show-girls. But I have not yet seen technologies similar to the “WOW effect”. The audience of auto-girls and huge plasma have not been impressive for a long time, people pass by indifferently.

Observation 2. When the event is planned in the basic version, minimum budgets are laid on communications, entertainment and interactivity.And if the organizers have a choice to invest 300 thousand rubles. on the Internet on the site to enhance communication and interactivity, or to purchase the entire amount of additional alcohol, it happens that the event chooses not the Internet. Because he believes that good whiskey is able to provide both communication, and entertainment, and interactive.

Event, digital and the internet have a lot in common

There are different motivations for using digital.

1. Digital is an effective way to promote a customer’s brand using many technical solutions.
The specificity of marketing budgets is that these are always significant amounts. From simply impressive to frankly indecent. Therefore, the effectiveness of their use is not only interesting to measure, but also instructive. Those who focus on accurate calculation of the effectiveness of spending money on marketing have a pronounced craving for Internet marketing. After all, it allows you to measure almost everything with a maximum degree of accuracy. Digital technology can provide similar data for any event in reality.

2. Eventors are well aware that today all communication trends are in the digital field.Whether it's messengers or social. network. It is digital that gives the coolest interactive event at the event - push technologies, games and mobile applications.

Recently, most of the technological innovations in the event-market appears in digital. Therefore, eventors look at the new technologies of this market as a panacea. And their goal is to find and quickly integrate into the mechanics of their events, achieving with their help the desired "WOW-effect."

The advantages of digital technology in event mechanics

When we discuss event-digital marketing with our customer in our WiFi service, we promise this:

1. “Glue” with the help of digital technologies an abstract audience of guests of the event with their profiles in social networks. And get at your disposal a huge amount of diverse information.
2. Involve the entire audience in communication with each other.
3. Stick the audience to yourself, so that at the end of the event, you can reach them with your promo. Because today it’s considered professional to build communication with a person not through intrusive mailing lists and SMS, but through a specific profile in social networks. networks.
4. To engage an additional audience in brand marketing: online friends of event visitors.

I will tell you about this with specific examples.

Case TNT

My experience in using digital technologies began with a TNT channel promotional event at Space Moscow in October 2014. An advanced game-fiction was wired into the mechanics of the event.

At that time, the main feature of the TV channel was a screensaver with a red sofa, sitting on which various characters of show business uttered the phrase: "TNT - feel our love." At its event, the TV channel relied on the popularity of the sofa and came up with the following. Imitating the mood of advertising, this piece of furniture and a recognizable backdrop were installed on the dance floor. Guests got the opportunity to appear as TNT media and take selfies on mobile devices. Further, the photo was proposed to be posted on Instagram, providing # TNT_feel_to_our_love.

A special Instagram script parsed and took the necessary photos to himself on our server, located in the same club. From it, an automatic display on the big screen was organized. Everyone photographed on a brand sofa, laid out in the social. network photos with a specified hashtag, get the opportunity to immediately see themselves on a huge panel. The publication of the picture was accompanied by the text, which the guest of the event provided to her in the social. network. Practice has shown that the calculation of the game-fiction was justified - visitors took a large number of their photos and looked forward to their appearance on the screen. For many guests, this was an incentive to post their photos on Instagram. There they appeared in hundreds.

What was left behind the scenes for visitors, on the contrary, turned into an object of close attention for organizers - more than a thousand photos with the TNT hashtag were noticed by friends of the guests of the event. The game-fiction built into the mechanics made it possible to involve not only 600 declared guests, but also several thousand of their friends in the social network of the TNT brand promo. networks.

The selected # Feel_Our_Love is also further promoted by the TNT channel slogan.

At the planning stage of the event, there were fears that posting photos on the air could be fraught with unpredictable photos and even provocations. Insurance in this regard was their moderation by the invited administrator of the channel. Therefore, between the post in the social. network and the appearance of the photo on the screen there was a slight pause.

The use of game-fiction elements in event mechanics introduced a distinct WOW effect. This did not require special financial investments, and the delight of the guests was genuine.

Case "The Messenger"

Unlike the TNT promotional format, Svyaznoy defined his format as internal. That is, the brand’s promotion was not needed. The task was to surprise the guests with a wealth of interactivity.

All invited to the event were leaders of a certain level. They were warned in advance about the need to install a special mobile application on the smartphone. Notification was carried out by e-mail. Not having time to do this on time, several experts helped at the entrance.

The application was created by our partners and, in fact, was a mini social. network with the following features:

• see the rest of the participants in the event;
• Add photos and videos
• exchange messages and other materials;
• participate in surveys;
• ask a speaker a question.

The latter feature has been especially useful. The question addressed to the lecturer by the lecturer got to a separate server and was reflected on the big screen. Therefore, it was possible to adjust the report taking into account incoming questions.

In addition, guests could vote for a specific speaker, after which a diagram with the actual distribution of votes appeared in the access. The voting system could be rented, and usually it happens at events, but not this time.

In general, the following were responsible for the interactivity at the event:

• mini social network;
• voting system;
• information boards;
• QR codes located in the form of videos on local servers to prevent subsidence of the Internet channel.

The result of using digital technologies at the “Svyaznoy” private event was a fully authorized 600 guests, whose activity we could observe and analyze.

The cost of such technologies is slightly higher than those used at the TNT channel event. However, the top management of the customer appreciated the application, so it worked after the event, turning into a corporate mini-social. network.

Trend: everyone is looking for something new, but how to find it

Today, there is a steady trend in the BTL-event market - to find something interesting from digital. In practice, it often looks like this: a major brand or customer announces a tender to find an artist who can ensure the development of digital-360 to promote the brand at events throughout the year. But in the conditions of the tender there is no specifics - what exactly does the customer want. There are only basic vectors or common words. It is proposed that they themselves propose a strategy within the budget set by the brand, the main hopes are laid on the creativity of event'ors.

In the above case studies, we tried to show how, with the help of digital technologies, it turned out to achieve a confident WOW-effect.

In the understanding of the event, digital trends are the following.

1. Different ways to engage your audience in virtual reality. The most traditional of them are websites, hashtags, etc., including the creation of special computer games for events. Then part of the event takes place offline, and the other in a computer game, digital space.
2. The use of social. networks - still in trend. Although the "WOW-effect" is hardly possible there, social. It’s too early to write off networks from the event market.
3. VR is one of the undisputed leaders among the trends discussed. The catch is the small number of ideas for their use in BTL-event marketing.
4. The trend with gamification is one hundred percent mainstream. It is very promising, but not yet in demand. Anyone who is able to offer the event market different scenarios for embedding in the mechanics of the event will ride the wave.
5. Visualization of the audience, chat bots instead of applications and a smart bracelet that analyzes the emotions of visitors.

What to do for an IT-employee here: forecasts

We hope that we were convincing in an attempt to show that BTL-event marketing is a successful area of ​​application for the efforts of an IT specialist. Today, truly cool solutions lie at the crossroads of technology, fields and professions. In particular, the application of IT-knowledge and IT-technologies can be moved beyond the framework of only the IT-sphere and "shared" on the event-field. The attractiveness and prospects of the latter is not only in tempting budgets - it is really very positive, inventive and fun here.

Almost all the technologies highlighted on habr'e can be successfully applied in event'ah. I urge the participants in the IT sphere to carefully look at them for the feasibility of implementation. It is only necessary to take into account that in order for an IT decision to be made in the event market, it is necessary to propose the mechanics of the event in which it could be involved.

At the beginning of the article I presented the dynamics of changes in the capacity of the BTL-event market, as well as the forecast for the current year - they are encouraging. Therefore, all IT-inventive is not the time to frown in front of the screens of their monitors, let's reflect on how to use trends and technologies that are close to us in events.

PS I will be glad to your comments. And in the near future plans to continue on existing technical practices. I’ll also tell you about the rake that was not spared and what kind of know-how had to be used to provide technical solutions for events.