Kenneth Briodagh

In our Then and Now series, EM revisits previous event marketing trends to find out where they’ve gone since we first reported on them. Are they old hats and has-beens? Or is that past up-and-comer a future best practice that’s now an industry standard? In this double-stuffed installment, we re-examine event registration systems, which we reported on in February 2007.

Determining how long a live engagement should be is an important strategic consideration for event marketers. Often the debate boils down to a simple equation of quality versus quantity. When it comes to the youth market, however, more and more brands are taking the latter path and finding that it makes all the difference.

For years, the conventional strategy for photo activations was to use them to create a draw to the footprint at a trade-show booth or consumer event, and then invite attendees to take a branded photo, either with a kiosk interaction or with the help of a brand ambassador-photographer. Now, with ever more sophisticated cameras and ubiquitous Wi-Fi and cellular service, some brands are escaping the footprint and seeking out consumers on the go.

In a high-tech world, the last of the low-tech event sectors is plugging in.

Event staffing has for years been a rather “hands-on business” in which third-party brand ambassador providers recruit and manage staffers for the agencies that work directly with brand clients. These staffing partners relied on a mix of phone, fax and email, and in many cases recruited B.A.’s using classified ads.

The Halloween season is one of the top 10 consumer spending periods in the retail space, according to the National Retail Federation, amounting to almost $5 billion last year. As we move into the spookiest time of the year, brands looking for opportunities to attract consumer dollars are exploring a series of haunting properties for attention-grabbing partnerships.