Executional Excellence Roadshows
CLIENT: Boehringer-Ingelheim & Eli Lilly Diabetes PortfolioBACKGROUND
Two pharmaceutical giants came together on their diabetes portfolios to examine how they can promote brand excellence across different organizational segments around the world. Global brand managers for two brands of treatments for Type 2 diabetes collaborated to host a series of roadshows occurring in various cities to allow regional executives to dig deeper and immerse themselves into the brands and then roll out their experience and learning to their respective country affiliates.
THE NEED
The agency was tapped to create and facilitate a 2-day work session complete with experiential immersion exercises and custom designs and templates for the series of roadshows to be executed. The overall goal of the sessions was to get participants familiar with each brand’s positioning and character, and open the floor to exploring how the desired brand experience translated in their marketing, sales, and communication initiatives.
BRAINSTORMS
To start the process of exercise development, the Lead Strategist conducted a series of brainstorms with internal staff. We needed to design and create exercises that were “deeply experiential” and distinctly unique from standard workshop exercises. The tone of the entire session was to be very kinesthetic and interactive rather than the formal and corporate events most client attendees would be accustomed to. Our lead client also tasked us with the challenge of having exercises that engaged all five senses.
We netted out with two main exercises and an option for a third. The first was around creating monuments for the brands that were represented. Participants would be invited to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty to put together a monument that encapsulated the desired experience for their brand using the materials provided. Their challenge would be to think through how the brand experience would look, smell, sound, taste, and feel like. Each group would be given a tickle trunk of various items ranging from arts and crafts materials, to essential oils, to baking decorations.
The second exercise involved bodystorming as a way of bringing to life various communication opportunities in a manner that evoked the desired brand experience. Participants would plan an event utilizing the conference space and their tickle trunk of materials. Details around the ambience, location, props, food, and available services were all to be taken into account. The share out would take the form of a newscast from the perspective of a reporter covering the event.
The optional third exercise was a gala-style event to wrap up the conference and celebrate the journey the participants underwent in their two days together.
CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Because the event involved two distinct brands and two distinct companies, the need for a neutral brand for the roadshows themselves was needed.
In collaboration with the internal team, different event themes ranging from immersion and diving in, to digging deeper and demystifying the brand, to building and unity were considered. The client had special heart for the idea of immersion and exploration and after another round of proposed metaphors, the final direction of deep dives and water exploration was chosen.
We blew out the metaphor into a journey, starting with just getting your feet wet, then slowly getting deeper and deeper, exploring the underwater world before finally resurfacing with new experiences and insights to share. This provided us with the visual direction required to develop a brand for the roadshows.
BRANDING + COLLATERALS
The client and project team looked to me as the Lead Creative to develop something new and fresh, in keeping with the tone of the sessions.
Beginning with the PowerPoint template, a design that played off the water theme utilizing abstract ripples set the background. Primary and secondary palettes were selected to be cool, refreshing, and vibrant, and typefaces were in keeping with the corporate templates. Slide layouts were intended to be highly visual and dynamic, but clean and easy to read. Templates for Word document communication bulletins, handouts, and name badges followed.
The metaphor of diving in, represented by a key image, was rolled out into a stand-up banner, web banners, registration email blasts, folders, save the date invitations, and USB keys given as a takeaway item at the first roadshow in Vienna, Austria.
A custom-illustrated visual agenda was also created, that showed the journey participants would go through in their two days together and what each activity related to in the bigger picture.
EVENT COORDINATION
Besides developing creative for the event, I was also tasked with liaising with the logistics companies in Germany and Brazil to coordinate the purchasing of items needed while ensuring we stayed on schedule and on budget. Because of the unconventional nature of the exercises, it was imperative that we had the right materials for participants to work with.
In addition to the planning and coordination prior to the event, I also travelled to Vienna for the first session to provide on-site support to the Lead Strategist as well as photograph the event. The footage taken was then compiled into a short video that was shown at the end of the two days as a wrap-up and summary for the participants. The video was also loaded onto the USB key takeaways as a memento for the client attendees and a way to visually share what they experienced at the session.
POST-SESSION PROMO
After running events in Vienna, Frankfurt, and São Paulo, our lead client came back to us requesting a means to promote the roadshow to other country affiliates who had yet to participate. The video needed to build excitement around the session and entice clients to join in on the experience.
With some guidance and support from the project team, I created a short video that compiled photographs from the roadshows that had taken place with verbatim quotes from participants around the value of what they learned.