Open Forum

Happy Monday everyone! Welcome back and let's get started with our Huddle of the Week!

Are you struggling to attract attendees to your conferences? Let's take a look at conference branding. There is a relationship between branding and your conference identity. First, you need to identify the purpose, values, personality, and tone of your conference. Then you are ready to start creating your conference brand by researching, defining your brand, creating a visual identity, integrating branding, consistent event marketing, activating the brand, and post-event cohesion. Feel free to get creative with your conference branding ideas with your social media, signage, swag, food & beverage, and technology.

The benefits of taking a comprehensive approach are distinction, relevance, experience, loyalty, and revenue. You can maximize your sponsorship and revenue with strategic conference branding. Some strategic ways include enhancing perception and trust, targeting audience alignment, differentiating, value proposition, sponsor integration, increasing attendee attraction, and post-event engagement. Successful branding can make your event unforgettable, transform your attendees' experience, and create immense value for your audience. 

Questions for you:

• What creative branding have you included in your events?
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? 

Want to learn more about the conference branding? Check out our Cvent Blog post – The Art of Conference Branding: How to Craft an Unforgettable Event- today! 

#HuddleoftheWeek

#VoiceIt

#Creating/ManagingEvents

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Megan Clark
Assistant Team Lead, Online Community Marketing
Cvent
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Questions for you:

• What creative branding have you included in your events? Swag items, as well as the tone of voice and candor we bring to our messaging.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Being a part of a larger University/institution, it can be a challenge to create a distinct brand that aligns with guidelines and still sets our school/foundation apart from the other schools at the University.

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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Branding is always difficult for us because we have to match precise company guidelines from our clients. 

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Kayla Sisco
Program Manager
Meetings & Incentives Worldwide, Inc.United States
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-29-2023 13:22
From: Cate Liverman
Subject: Creating an Unforgettable Branded Conference

Questions for you:

• What creative branding have you included in your events? Swag items, as well as the tone of voice and candor we bring to our messaging.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Being a part of a larger University/institution, it can be a challenge to create a distinct brand that aligns with guidelines and still sets our school/foundation apart from the other schools at the University.

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Cate Liverman
Director-Constituent Relations
UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School FoundationUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?  Custom logo M&Ms for trail mix, custom logo Chinese take-out boxes and fortune cookies (with custom fortunes) for an Asian-themed buffet
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding?  Order quantities - minimum 10,000 sets of chopsticks for custom printing is a bit too many for a 50 person event; lead time; set-up fees outweighing the value ($350 set-up fee for items that otherwise cost $100 isn't worth it)

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Julie-Michelle Davis, CMP
Meetings Manager
Amex GBT - USA
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?
  • Really nothing other than swag for our in-person events
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? 
  • Staff outside of marketing taking the lead on branding

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Lori Wildman
Marketing Director
lwildman@dmainc.com
DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.United States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? We've done a large 100+ ft interactive touch screen wall, we did a giant 16' floral wall in florida last year, this year we're doing a vibrant backdrop incorporating local wildflowers from Texas, we're doing a 16ft giant # of our event with an LED screen below to promote things from our event.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Usually costs is our biggest hinderence :( that and often times hotels have put a lot of rules and guidelines in our way

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Rachel
NJ
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? We are limited based on many of our internal meetings are mostly corporate branding. But part of our marketing team has input on any of our branding at events.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Being limited to stick within Corporate Branding.

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Beth Vriesen.
Events Registration Administrator
Associated Bank Corporation
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?  We have started adding in branded backdrops and props to encourage people to take selfies & post on social media
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding?  It can be hard to find swag that is actually useful vs. just filler

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Elena PEREZ
Communications Coordinator
SEIU - UHWUnited States
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What creative branding have you included in your events? custom hotel keycards, logo clings that look like etched glass on mirrored/glass surfaces like windows; pillar, elevator and reg desk wraps, our logo on the closed circuit TV in the hotel rooms for when guests arrive in their room, etc.

What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Oh, you may not like this answer - but Cvent is a big obstacle in representing our brand - particularly in the app and Attendee Hub; as well as the agenda functionality in Flex.  Our content is a huge part of our brand and promoting it is difficult with the limitations we face with your products.

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Heather Payne
Director, Conference & Event Marketing
RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.Canada
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?
  • Everything from branded signage, floor decals and digital signage (both website, app, and onsite), to ice sculptures and Gobos. Also so much different swag - everything from the standard event shirts, notebooks, and backpacks to electronic items, fun toys and stuffed animals.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? 
  • Making sure everything stays consistent across all mediums

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Tori Martinez
Event Technology Specialist
Creative Group Inc.
United States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? We usually have a swag item. But most of our branding is the conference website and email campaigns. 
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Decisions on what to give out are made by committee so decisions are slow at times when there are time-based ordering deadlines. 

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Erica Lovercamp
Conference Coordinator
Curators of the University of MissouriUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? - not my company but an event I just went to had personal branding touches beverywhere from the org logo inice cube, to welcome banners that moved around the different event spaces(including the hotel registration building) 
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? The cost

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Justina Hulen
Events director
RSLC
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?
  • Our college just created "SAM" Scientist at Mason. Non-binary and it's like a mascot for our college of science.  Cute and creative, helps with building a community with younger kids and promoting STEAM
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding?
  • Working at a large university it's always a challenge. We have limited options to go "off brand" and the approval process has many steps!

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Lesley Irminger
Manager of Operations, Alumni and Constituent Engagement
George Mason - Office Of University EventsUnited States
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Questions for you:

• What creative branding have you included in your events? We brand with trade show giveaways and logo'd items.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Price, something that stands out that is easy to travel with, sustainability

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Virginia McCoy
Sales Associate
Visit Savannah
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? We mainly do swag items with branding. We did blankets for an event that was a huge hit. People also loved our branded M&M's. Everyone loves food and sweets
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Sometimes it's hard to come up with unique branding ideas when I feel like I get the same offerings at trade shows and conferences. We want to offer some creative that people will actually use past the conference but also something that doesn't break the bank

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Laura Apel
Events Manager
CDLLifeUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?
  A fun item has been our pocket schedules that can fit into the badge holders. These replaced a huge 48 page program with all agenda details that attendee hub took the place of. 
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? 
  Rising printing/installation costs on-site at hotels. We have seen MASSIVE increases over the last few years. 

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Chris Townley
Marketing and Communications Associate
National Council Of State Housing AgenciesUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events?  We have tried to determine a theme and then base the swag gifts on the theme.  For example, we were hosting a nursing conference during Covid.  The theme was "taking care of yourself so you can take care of others".  We made gift boxes and included our swag items along with tea, soft socks, a journal, etc.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Cost is our biggest challenge.  As a not for profit, we cannot dedicate a lot of funds to branding items which forces us to be very creative.

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Sarah Jacobson
hybrid
St. Luke's Health SystemUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? One of our clients used their own swag from their stores and color coded everything by region, this helped with break out groups and to identify which part of the country attendees were from.
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding?  We build sites for multiple clients so it's always interesting when a new client gives us their branding guidelines and how we can use their colors and/or logos to make a cohesive site for their meetings.

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Denise Slee
Meeting Technology Specialist
World TravelUnited States
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• What creative branding have you included in your events? A cool idea that some of our clients do is a logo sand sculpture on our beach or done on a huge platform and brought into the lobby!  I like a nice ice carving logo too! 
• What are some challenges you have faced with branding? Costs! :) 

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Colleen Beck
Director of Sales & Marketing
The Westin Tampa Bay
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What creative branding have you included in your events? Cvent Branding Package  checkout the favicon option and custom url option!

What are some challenges you have faced with branding? pushback on wanting to get creative with branding

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Hallie Loeb, HMCC
Event Operations Specialist
CDW United States
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