Jessica Heasley

Jessica is a Brooklyn, NY-based business writer, currently serving as an editor-at-large for Event Marketer focused on event measurement practices and special projects. She has more than 25 years of experience working in marketing and events, as well as producing and writing about them, too.
  • B-to-C Events

    The Power of Buzz

    What it is what it ain't who's making it— and how you can get some? The Event Marketer special report on word-of-mouth marketing. It bubbles up around the watercooler. It whips from one end of the playground to the other at lightening speed. It gets dished over coffee gushed about among friends and spread like wildfire over the Internet. It of course is word of mouth—impassioned recommendations about everything from the SNL skit you had to see to the shampoo you have to try. It’s electric baby.

  • B-to-B Events

    Big Ideas in Small Spaces

    Accuray’s preferred means of approaching its trade show marketing is to bring its CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System to the show floor because the system is quite the draw on its own. The challenge occurs when Accuray doesn’t have enough room or budget in its exhibit to bring the entire system—which requires about 400 square feet for just the product display.

    “When we have a 40-foot-by-40-foot exhibit or larger we bring our entire treatment suite. But when we have a smaller space we have to get innovative ” says Patti Cardoza exhibit manager for Accuray.

  • B-to-C Events

    Standing Out as a Sports Property Part I

    To theme or not to theme that is the question all event marketers must ask themselves before designing an attendee experience at a property known for its passionate fan base. Car games at NASCAR. Football tosses at the Super Bowl. Golf swing clinics at the PGA Tour. Sure the tie-ins have kind of a duh-factor but they also present a challenge. If everyone’s doing it how much bang for your buck are you really getting?

  • B-to-C Events

    Sponsoring Olympic Athletes

    As the countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games begins many brands are waiting with nervous anticipation to find out if the athletes they sponsored will make the cut. Will they get to be associated with legends in the making like Michael Phelps? Will their alternative sports star become the next Shaun White? Or will the ultimate gamble the underdogs become the next feel-good press sensation like the Jamaican bobsled team?

  • Index word-of-mouth Superstar
    B-to-C Events

    Word-of-mouth Superstar

    Part drag queen part sales pro and giver of a lot of off-color one-liners Miss Dixie Longate proves that entertainment value and marketing chops can not only fluff up a stale brand perception it can sustain enough word-of-mouth to push one savvy (and saucy) Tupperware saleswoman straight to the top. This year Dixie’s taking her show on the road with an off-Broadway production that adapts her in-home events for the stage. EM caught up with her to find out what keeps her in high demand.