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Fifty industry delegates were invited to the Morning Premiere event, including representatives from Barclays, British Gas, Nico Ventures, BSkyB, GSMA, Skoda and Volkswagen. Guests were welcomed by two hostesses, supplied by Kru Live, and were served food items from the hotel's high-breakfast menu.
In the venue’s private cinema room, Kevin Jackson, vice-president of sales and marketing, EMEA, at George P Johnson, kicked off proceedings as he highlighted how brands are defined by their actions.
"There has been a huge amount of change," Jackson said. "There is more trust in social networks than institutions. We use brand advocates, rather than brand pushers. And brands need to listen rather than talk, to gain relationships instead of awareness."
He highlighted that 90% of consumers think of a brand through an experience, rather than a marketing message (10%), and 76% of them said word of mouth influences their purchasing decisions.
Bo Kruger, co-creator of Danish meeting design concept Meetovation, headed a session on creating effective and inspiring learning environments. He explained Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of flow, which looks at the ways in which people are fully immersed in an activity, and how this can be transferred and adapted for events and venues.
"You need complexity and integrity in a room," Kruger said. "You can add complexity through art and furniture, which can be multifunctional and provide interaction. The physical set-up should correspond with the event content."
Nicoline Hansen, chief executive of Enkonference, a conference consultancy based in Copenhagen, said there were two key points to consider when designing an event – rhythm and learning.
She also highlighted formats the company has used to help delegates engage at an event, including ‘statistics on two legs’. "We did this at a recent event where the company wanted to convey its goals for 2020," Jansen said. "Five islands were set up within a room for each goal, and each participant was asked questions about them. This helped the company to generate a deeper understanding of their audience's knowledge."
Twitter UK’s Scougal gave a talk on how the social media platform can be used for events, and said live, reactive tweeting might provide the biggest opportunity, but was not the only option.
He outlined four scenarios in which event organisers and brands could use Twitter, so that users could tweet to share moments in different ways. These included everyday conversations, reactive moments, live moments and campaign highlights.
"Twitter is an open, relative platform – the pulse of the planet," Scougal said. "Brands can connect with a person in that moment in a way that is hyper-relevant. It is relevant for events – brands can plug into that exact moment."
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