The X Factor

There it is — that all too familiar sensation of your cell phone ringing or Blackberry buzzing. The message is from a client with a request chock full of the event buzzwords we all know too well. They need an event that’s creative, innovative, different, desirable and valuable.

That last note — value — has become a familiar new member to the event dictionary of client demands. While many a meeting planner has busied him- or herself with the value proposition of events, mirroring the corporate speak of return on investment (ROI) and return on objective (ROO) in recent years, often overlooked, and critical to the event industry, is another r-factor: ROX. That is, return on experience.

Meeting the Experience Objective

Although there are a number of helpful commentaries and a few working models for ROI and ROO in the events industry, as a producer, I often find myself stuck on the one problem neither option seems to address.

Events are, by their very nature, creations of facilitated human interactions for some function or purpose. That said, it is difficult, at best, to gain perspective on how individual people interpret the value they receive from the events they attend — a wholly subjective and anecdotal matter. Such qualitative interpretations of events do not necessarily align well with the quantitative, bottom-line, dollars-spent-per-person concerns of an ROI model.

While I don’t want to distract from the importance of ROI, a focus on meeting the experience objective may be, I believe, more helpful for event professionals.

Events are experiences. In fact, most events are a lot of little experiences woven together to tell a story. The various characters in our events — invitations, food, décor, and the mood elements of lighting, sound, space and scent — weave the various plot lines that engage attendees. The proposition for any planner, then, is to meet the event’s experience objective, ensuring the consistency and clarity of the experience echoed by the chorus of characters performing together in unison.

The Right Equation

Building better experiences for our clients first requires a conscious creative strategy. For those who enjoy equations, the ROX model has a simple one: eXperience = Purpose x Audience x Message.

Better defined:
• Purpose: The reason for or function of the event. Answers “Why are we having it?”
• Audience: The various audiences who are attending the event. Answers: “Who is attending?” (Careful — there is almost always more than one audience!)
• Message: The story the client is trying to communicate to attendees. Answers: “What message(s) should the guests walk away with at the conclusion of the event?”

From the beginning of the process, it is necessary to keep an eye on these three critical factors. Collectively, they define the event and offer the opportunity for consistency, clarity and cohesiveness of the event experience. Having built our framework from this sort of event strategy, we may then paint freely with the brush of creativity in the colors of innovation to create experiences our guests will not soon forget.

From Theory to Practice

Take, for example, a corporate consulting firm that was launching an alumni program to reconnect participants who had taken part in its programs over the past 15 years.

Purpose? To announce the new alumni program. Audience? A mix of alumni reuniting and corporate professionals just beginning one of the client’s programs. Message? The power of the community of individuals gathered in the room to connect with each other — the client desired the guests to walk away with a clear understanding of the network to which they were reconnecting and belonged.

Knowing the event’s purpose and the audience guided our creation of a successful experience built to communicate the desired message.

We created a short branded animation video that introduced the theme. Onscreen, brand icons appeared one by one along with text about the “power of the connection among people” and “the illumination of the network of individuals.”

But then we got creative.

Simultaneously, large, branded table lamps that we had selected for centerpieces began to illuminate one by one in a pattern that mirrored the appearance of characters on the screen. From the center of the room, these table lamps “connected” the network of tables at which the guests were seated.

The end result was a shared experience for the audience and a clear message literally illuminating the network of corporate professionals to which they now belonged. Innovating the execution of that message meant that the audience would recognize and remember that experience.

The Value of Experience

The true value of the experience model is that it forces us, as event professionals, to step back at the beginning of our projects and strategize about the experience we are creating.

By building the event experience according to purpose, audience and message, we create stronger and more valuable guest experiences. The consistency, clarity and cohesiveness of the ultimate event product will create for the guest an experience that is both consumable and brand-savvy. Executing our events through the framework of this thoughtful strategy and then adding creativity and innovation to the canvas ensures that guests will leave feeling good about their experience — which relates to how they will feel about the value of their investment of time and/or money spent on the event. And just maybe, they will respond as favorably to our clients as a guest did after the event mentioned above.

“I was so thrilled to have been a part of such a fantastic event,” she said. “I have been to other events since and was disappointed about the look and feel of them.”

Such feedback only goes to show that the return on the dollars spent by our clients correlates to the experience we create for them. Starting our projects with a model based on strategic creativity allows for successful event experiences that will prove valuable to our audiences. The messages will be communicated. The goals and objectives met. And ultimately, the true return of the experience model may answer the objective from which this article began, in that the retention of the experience — the memory in guests’ minds — just may correlate to a measurable ROI for our clients in the events we produce.

Editors Note: Last month, Event Solutions explored industry-wide responses to the topic of return on investment in “Magic Numbers,” by Rachel Globus. This month, Ryan Hanson offers an alternative way of looking at an event’s value proposition.