Industry View
Content
is king
Pure Events ceo Charlotte
Gentry asks ‘is event
content the new essential
commodity in the events
industry?’
A
“We need to really
consider who
our audience is
and what their
expectations
are. What are the
challenges that the
industry/company
is facing”
ccording to most people I speak to in the
agency world, content is where it’s at now
when it comes to adding value in the events
sector. So much so, that I was recently in a
meeting with the owner of a larger agency, who
asked me rather impertinently ‘so if your main
specialism is logistics, where is the value in that?’
My response was that our clients are looking for
creativity and uniqueness in event design, and
immaculate delivery onsite which illustrates the
immense value to them, when they don’t have
the resource or ability to do this themselves. He
still looked quizzically at me in a rather arrogant
manner.
We have recognised, as a leading agency in
the events sector, that offering clients content
creation as part of the integrated agency offering
is now essential. Why? Because most companies
internally don’t know how to actually transmit
their essential messaging to their fragile
audiences. The days of death by PowerPoint
are truly over. Jeff Bezos has in fact taken this
to another level by giving his audience the
content to read in silence at the beginning of his
conferences, and then uses the rest of the time
discussing the issues and engaging his audiences
with interactive content.
If you are an agency which is aiming to break
the mould and live in a forward-thinking world,
then engaging and interactive content is where
it’s at, and there is no escaping this. Only
agencies, in house event planners and exhibition
planners who adapt their attitudes to be more
strategic in their approach will really survive.
The competition is so strong now, and with an
increasing push to move everything in a virtual
direction, the need for elevated engagement and
interactive content is greater than ever.
So how do we adapt our thinking? Well, more
than anything we need to really consider who
our audience is and what their expectations
are. What are the challenges that the industry/
company is facing which need to be addressed
at the event? Then we need to build the right
content around these factors.
Therefore, if you are a creative content
producer, you are a hot commodity right now! At
Pure Events, we are in the process of diversifying
as we need to ensure we are at the forefront of
the future and our clients are increasingly in
need of guidance in this area.
Certainly for us, the financial and professional
services sector is very conservative and
doesn’t respond to change willingly so it is an
educational process for us to try to show them
where the future is heading.
My final thoughts are that in the scary world of
social media, content creation is everything and
I was recently told that if you aren’t advertising
on Facebook, you basically won’t have a business
in the future...what a terrifying thought. Gary
Vee who preaches about this topic incessantly
believes that if you aren’t pushing out content on
social media every day of the week about your
industry or your business, you are falling behind.
However, this has spurred me on to build greater
video content for social media and my business,
as well as interesting articles about the sector
which I hope my industry peers find informative.
November — 51