B-to-B Events

This year’s Cisco Live! event at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas was a five-day paid conference featuring content-packed days and nightly networking opportunities.

It can be looked upon as a throwaway element, but if that’s your promotional product modus operandi, you are probably just throwing away your money. If handled properly, the stuff you give away can come back to you in the form of brand loyalty and ROI. But the promo industry is in flux, with new laws restricting giveaways and popular outcry against waste, and while going green might make you look good, it also might be less green than it is a red herring. With all this in mind, EM brings you its State of the Tchotchke report.

When the G20 Summit hit Toronto June 25, the delegates were tasked with the big issues: the global economy, green energy and financial reform, to name a few. Canada Tourism had just one mission: to remind the world to “Think Canada” for tourism, business and investment. With this directive in mind, the Experience Canada Pavilion was born.

When it comes to launching event programs in a market still stinging from the effects of the recession, some brand marketers feel more comfortable taking calculated risks than trying new ideas. That’s why more and more brands are testing the value of their event strategies in small doses before rolling them out to the masses. The test components can be as simple as trying out email subject lines to see which are more effective in driving registrations for conferences, like Intel did for its annual Developer’s Forum, or as complicated as road-testing an entire event.

Intimate apparel brand Hanes on August 5 held an afternoon press event to introduce fashion editors, stylists and influencers to its newest women’s products—a line of comfortable, bras, panties, tanks and T-shirts in bright colors. In keeping with the “comfort” theme, the event took place at trendy Nikki Beach Midtown, in New York City, a spot where sophisticated Manhattanites have been known to kick back and relax. Hanes repeated the event later in the day for a second audience comprised of social media influencers and bloggers.