Speaker 1: It's very easy to be boring when planning corporate events. I have five ideas for you to jazz up your corporate event in 2018, coming up next. Hey everyone, my name is Giulio Solaris and I'm the editor of Event MB. This channel is all about helping you make awesome events. Whether you're starting out or you're a seasoned event professional, we want to share with you tips, advice, and strategies to make your events successful. This video today is brought to you by Avenium, technology for corporate meetings. I hear your struggle. I know how demanding your audience can be and how tough it is to find new ideas all the time. And that's why at Event MB, we came to the rescue with five cool and simple ideas you can use your next corporate event really make an impression with your guests. The first idea I have for you is about food, but a different way of looking at food, a way that re-communicates a brand message. And we know branding is important in corporate events, but we're always tired of the usual ways of having brand presence, whether it's banners or the usual, I don't know, spot on a website. That doesn't really mean anything, doesn't communicate anything anymore. We can do better than that. And so using food as a vehicle for branding in corporate events is the hot trend of 2018. And so a few ideas around food. Customized cocktails is always one that I like. Having a bartender that creates custom cocktails for your attendees, really design around themselves. They can share a little bit about themselves and the bartender comes up with a mix that really reflects their personality. Or it can be, I don't know, light chocolate, for example, that doesn't have the usual calorie intake of chocolate, but still a nice and refreshing way to engage with a brand. Or we've seen also alcohol, lollipops, as a very, very popular way of driving brand awareness. And be really fun and playful while catering to an adult audience as well, which is kind of the combination you wanna have in a corporate event environment. The second idea I have for you, it's more tech-oriented. You know, I'm a geek and I love technology. And it's actually provided by the very sponsor of this video, Venium. And it's called Visual Collaboration. It's a tool that I particularly like and enjoy because it's very well catered to the type of audience we're talking about here. So if you work with C-level suite type of attendees, you want to have technology tools that enable that collaboration, especially if you have team building activities, small meetings, they're very executive, there needs to be a little bit of brainstorming happening in the room. And there are tools, technology tools, that really help to streamline that process and not always rely on whiteboards that can be extremely ineffective in some situation, especially when you have to gather all the input from different people in the audiences and you have a moderator that actually pulls it all together. So having a technology way to kind of streamline that whole process is the way forward, is a way to impress your guests, to show them that you're using technology cleverly and not just as a gimmick, but as a tool to get people to collaborate. So Visual Collaboration, definitely want to watch for 2018. Number three on my list is a segue from 2017 and very strong, if not stronger in 2018, and it's meeting design. Specifically when it gets to corporate events is the room layout component of the meeting design process. So once again, I want to clarify that, you can watch our previous videos as well, we've discussed meeting design in depth. The angle here is not the core, so it's not a color scheme or the centerpieces that we're using, but it's how we design the event to be extremely effective, to reinforce the message, to change behavior, which should be the objective of every respectable and effective event. And so when it gets to meeting design applied to corporate events, really we're looking at room layouts, using furniture that is not the usual C-shape, academic type of shape, classroom type of environment, that really kills the interest, even before people enter the room. Just by looking at it, you already kind of shut down any type of emotion, any type of involvement that could be with the message. So playing with the furniture, it's incredibly important. I have a link in the description that can help you. We have a whole report on meeting design that's free to download on Event MB, which I highly invite you to have a look at, because really you need to shuffle around the usual elements of room layouts and play also select venues that support that forward-thinking mentality of creating layouts that engage the audience, because a big part of that is actually the venue where you have the event. Number four is once again about branding and what I call clever branding. I have a few examples that I'm gonna show you now of clever branding happening and really using venues in a clever way, placing branding where you want, expect it. I have a few examples. The one that I particularly love is the use of the logo or messaging of conferences specifically on the actual staircase leading to the main room. This is such a clever way. It's a perfect photo opportunity for the guests that really makes a huge visual impact and changes the way you communicate to your guests. That also translates if you have the capacity and if you really play with your sponsors or internal stakeholders as well to create specific areas within the event, such as lounges, which are extremely popular over the past couple of years, but so strong in 2018. It's also related to different activities you may have in the event. So you don't have the usual toilets, eat, main room. You kind of have areas such as the work areas, the relax area, the meditation area. So playing once again with meeting design, but be clever and using sponsors sometimes. We have several examples, for example, of PayPal or Intel having lounges at South by Southwest, full flat lounges with incredible bars or workplace stations. Obviously you don't have to be as fancy as that. It's just really about being creative and using the messaging and the space cleverly. The last idea for you, idea number five, is one that was incredibly popular over the past few years, but has kept kind of a momentum going and is still so very relevant, especially if you play with boring meetings where content is sometimes, you know, not as sexy as, I don't know, a video convention for teenagers. So if you have like more association style type of meetings where the content is super technical, but still you need to engage the attendees, the fifth idea for you is graphic recording. So the ability to have an artist on site recording what is happening in a graphic manner, meaning using cartoons, using graphic elements to really summarize what your speakers are saying, what the sessions are about. You don't need to have it for all the sessions of an event. It could be just for a keynote. This is a great way to visually sum up what is being discussed. And it's incredibly important for some types of attendees because not everybody learns in the same way. There are some people that are very visual. They need to see what is being displayed. And in technical corporate events where content is super vertical, a problem is usually slides. They don't communicate well. As much training as you can do to your speakers, they still deliver those, you know, 10 point size bullet lists that are so extremely boring. So what can you do to jazz that up and really make it visual to those that learn visually? I have an artist in the room that draws a cartoon, some sort of a cartoon style summary of what's being discussed. So powerful. I've seen it at very high-end corporate meetings. Always loved by attendees. Perfect picture opportunity as well. We live in an era of social media. So it's a fantastic way to make an impact in 2018. So that's it for me today. I hope you enjoyed these five ideas to jazz up your corporate events in 2018. These are ideas you can absolutely steal. We're here for that. And so if you have more of those, you wanna share them with our audience, use the comment section below. Can't wait to see all of your contributions. If you enjoyed this video, give us a like or subscribe. We have more awesome content coming your way to make your events successful. I've been Giulio Solaris. I'll see you at the next one.