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What makes a meeting truly stand out from others?
It's not necessarily howmuch money was spent but how many positively
memorable experiences the attendees recall.
Many conferences involve a theme, reinforced through a logo, theme,
events, and speakers to create an overall "feel" and value
throughout the convention. Why not further reinforce your meeting
content and mood by enveloping attendees in planned sequences of memorable
moments that involve sensory combinations of smells, tastes, sounds,
sights, and even "touchable" experiences?
Few meetings can or should be able to compete with the sizzle of a
modern amusement park or an action movie, but meeting planners and
hotel and other site managers can multiple the number of positive
exposures attendees experience and thus increase the possibility that
those attendees will rave about their meeting.
Conduct a Sensory Exposures
Audit
To make the most of the event, conduct a "Sensory Exposures Audit"
of all the images to which your attendees will be exposed, from the
pre-meeting mailings and other contacts, through the meeting itself
and post-meeting reinforcements. Just as political campaigns have
"advance agents" who walk through every step of an event
ahead of time to consider all that might go right or wrong (from slippery
steps to photo-opportunity backdrops), you can mentally visualize
each "vignette" attendees might experience.
Ask hotel and convention center staff for photos of the actual colors
and patterns most frequently used in their sleeping, eating, meeting,
and gathering spaces, and take notes on the combinations during your
site visit, so your theme colors and images are compatible and even
complementary.
Ask the staff where you're going to find the most conflicting and
comforting background sounds from piped-in music, other meetings,
mechanical operations, catering procedures, or beyond-the-facility
noises. Where do the smells go from the cooking and catering areas?
Are the walkways carpeted? Is the carpet plush or thin? Is the facility
signage large and easy to understand? What do the chairs feel like?
Are there many comfortable places to relax and converse between organized
activities? Is there much access to natural light (to elevate attendees'
moods) during some of the daytime activities? Consider the impact
attendees might experience on all the senses.
Drive and walk through the major and minor "paths" your
attendees will use from the time they leave an airport (if they use
one) to the time they arrive back at the airport ñ and observe
what sensory delights they might receive before they go or upon their
return.
Storyboard the Meeting Experience
Borrow a storyboarding trick from TV advertisement creators. Write
out the meeting "story" as a three-part series of sequences
or "exposures" attendees will experience: pre-meeting, meeting,
and post-meeting.
For each "exposure"
you identify:
1. Write a brief description of the exposure in chronological sequence,
as the attendee is most likely to experience it, down pages of paper
in one of three columns: positive, negative, and neutral (exposures).
Describe how the exposure is
most likely to be:
* positive: Candid photos taken as they enter the opening-night mixer,
placed in pressed-board white frames inscribed with the meeting theme
and hung on fishline strings in the buffet breakfast room the next
day for their take-away souvenir.
* negative: Inevitably long treks between certain meeting rooms
* mostly neutral: Conventionally decorated hotel rooms
2. Then write out what the potential attendee will see, hear, smell,
taste, and/or touch. How many of the senses can you include in each
exposure to make it more positively memorable?
Try creating more "low-tech" sensory experiences, such as
more human touch. Increase the number of times an attendee is greeted
by name or a handshake. Two studies were done in 1996 and 1997 in
which two groups experienced the same public event, with the only
difference that people in one group were safely touched (for example,
shaking hands, touch on the top of the hand) just twice in a three-hour
period. The so-called "touched group" described the people
sponsoring the event as more intelligent, caring, and good looking
than did the other group.
Try higher-tech sensory moments, such as scenting a general session
in keeping with the speaker and convention theme, gradually changing
the scent three times, from lemon to lime to suntan lotion during
the course of the 40-minute, midwinter, pre-lunch keynote speech.
Lightly scent the handouts to match. Technology does now make it possible
to scent to refresh, relax, or renew ñ without allergic reactions.
You'll begin to see your meeting as a theatrical production, considering
the attendees' every waking moment. The possible payoffs? You'll find
ways to move more of the exposures to the positive side, often not
through more costs but through changes in planning.
Inflame Their Imaginations
For a "negative" exposure such as a long, boring walk between
meeting rooms, you could "Burma Shave" the build-up of interest
and excitement in the trek with a sequence of messages on stands or
on the walls, like the old highway signs of rhyming phrases car passengers
passed on long stretches of road. The messages could build suspense
toward the identity of award recipients, an entertainment event with
a surprise guest, a contest they can win with the right answer for
a vendor, or a trivia contest that encourages attendees and exhibitors
to talk.
Messages could also be placed in sequence around corners and on the
way into meeting rooms, some with cryptic instructions to look under
their chairs for more.
Related messages can also appear on the backs of meeting leaders at
the podium, who turn for attendees to read them, followed by some
of the waiters who appear to serve each other "back" messages.
Other messages and clues and teasers might appear under attendeesí
hotel room doors while they sleep, next to their plates at lunch,
or on the seminar handout on their seats.
Prior to the meeting you might send a "Burma Shave" series
of postcards (sending them with increasing frequency as the event
approaches) offering more reasons to attend and to sign up early.
For example, the first postcards for a midwinter meeting in a sunny
locale might be a series with images of blue water and yellow sun,
messages to come prepared for warm sun and sizzling topics, and scented
with coconut suntan lotion. Send companion messages via e-mail, directing
attendees to your web site for a convention preview and contest.
Use the Tricks of Blockbuster
Movies
As in a blockbuster movie, the most important exposures are the "opening
scene," the handling of potentially slow times, the climax, and
the ending. Many meetings have a slow beginning (hotel check-in, meeting
registration, dead time before the first meeting).
Make Attendees Feel Coddled and Cared For >From the First Moments
of Their Arrival
Consider having a team of people greet arrivals at the hotel door(s),
perhaps in costume and certainly giving them a welcome gift. Make
the gift fun to see, touch, and taste. Have a second gift waiting
for them in their room, perhaps a contest announcement. The more cared
for attendees feel up front, the more they will perceive subsequent
meeting experiences in a positive light, want to participate, and
forgive later mishaps.
Move to Emotion and Playtime
In all waiting times, from registration to coffee areas, plan amusements
that catch the eye or that people can hold or play with or hear. For
example, have modern clowns or ventriloquists or magicians roam the
gathering areas around registration areas to build movement, excitement,
and involvement. Or mimes might follow and imitate attendees in gentle
fun, perhaps giving mementos provided by exhibitors that make them
eligible for a drawing if they visit the booths.
Let Them Literally "Picture"
Themselves Having Fun
Create ways to get attendees involved and interested soon after they
arrive. The best ways are to get them in motion and to let them see
motion around them, because motion literally increases the emotion
people feel. Here are some examples:
1. A videographer can capture attendees' responses to the interactions
for later use in a continuous-feed loop shown on TV monitors at eye-level
in gathering places between meeting rooms.
2. The videographer can interview people for their opinion on a meeting
topic and/or comments on a favorite co-attendee. Let the resultant
video run as a continuous-feed loop on eye-level TV monitors for future
waiting times.
3. Several photographers with Polaroid cameras can photograph groups
and individuals. These can quickly be taken to a local copy center
and produced as enlargements for an ever-enlarging "Meeting Montage"
on a central wall attendees see frequently.
Eavesdropping on Conversations
Along the Way
Consider adding "localized sound" along the "paths"
attendees will walk. At strategic times and in excitement-starved
places, place portable audiotape and CD machines. Obviously the security
of needed equipment is a consideration, so you'll want to place equipment
where staff or volunteers can see it. Consider the registration area
or inside the doors people enter for banquets.
The "sounds" can be music, related to the meeting theme,
or sound bites of attendees who have been interviewed about their
advice or praise for their peers, or an "Eavesdrop": lively
conversation between meeting leaders about the meeting high points.
Change the tapes sometimes so attendees can look forward to new experiences.
Sweet Smell of Success
At an association conference designed to strengthen member unity and
celebrate success, our theme was "Success is Sweet." Hereís
how it goes:
When participants enter the opening evening "Five Heavenly Chocolates"
mixer in a ballroom, they are enveloped in the enticing, wafting scent
of chocolate from the AromaSys-designed scent machines. As they arrive,
they are given scented "player cards" with the name and
"stats" of a person's accomplishments, printed in brown
ink in the format of a baseball card, and invited to find the person
who matches the accomplishments. Huge enlargements of the cards are
projected on the walls and constantly changing.
When attendees find their person, they can return to get a new card
for a different person. The ten people who find the most matches win
chocolate player-card prizes and chocolate "MVP" statues
later in the evening. People can use roving mikes to ask for help
in finding their person. As attendees mingle, a singer's song list
naturally features chocolate and athletic themes.
Continue the Story Through the
Meeting
At breakfast the next day, all attendees receive two forms: one to
fill out their own MVP player accomplishments and another to fill
out for a colleague they admire, who is attending the convention.
All attendees who fill out forms are eligible to have their photo
taken for their own two-sided MVP Player card, enlarged to poster
size. The poster of the attendee who is most written up by his or
her colleagues is blown up to wall size and mounted on a wall the
last day of the convention, when the person's name is announced with
game music in the background and a rally squad dancing to celebrate.
Make Memories Palpable in "High
Touch" and "High Tech" Ways
Before the convention even starts, lay out a post-meeting newsletter
filled with comments the speakers will offer, awards announcements,
and news of important dates. Include actions such as signing up for
the next meeting or volunteering for a committee.
Leave places for photos and attendee comments you gather during the
convention. Place them in the holes left in the newsletter, and then
quick-copy and label the newsletter on the last day of the convention
so attendees receive this unexpected "Meeting Memento" very
soon after returning home. Send an e-mail version of the newsletter,
too, with a "Thank you for participating" message.
Further Reinforce Meeting Memories
in Their Minds
A week later, send a gift pack of gifts provided by some exhibitors,
along with their product offers, and your message, again thanking
attendees and reminding them of the calls for action on their part.
Few meetings include immediate follow-up to attendees. Fewer still
follow up more than once, soon after a meeting. Stand out in their
senses and their minds, so they'll step forward for your next meeting
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