Raising the Bar on Hybrid: The Metrics of Success
What gets measured gets improved
BY DEVIN FINNERAN | COPYWRITER
Hybrid is the buzzword of our times, and we’re all for it - hybrid cars, hybrid sponsorship, and the latest, hybrid events.
But can hybrid adaptations replace our traditional, much loved in-person model? How can we measure the success of a hybrid experience?
As an agency, we have tested and assessed the techniques that can be applied to help drive results for our clients. Our Head of Digital Solutions, Miriam Verdon, has been leading our client conversations around the metrics of successful hybrid experiences, and we've compiled the main factors to consider when putting plans in motion: setting goals, establishing engagement strategies, building a budget, and choosing effective measurement tools.
Achievable Aspirations
First up, it’s essential to set out your key performance indicators (KPIs) in the early stages of planning. Success can be measured in different ways, and whether you intend to build your reach or grow revenue, it's important to ensure that everyone is on the same page. At the beginning of each project, we work with our clients to establish smart goals; they must be specific, measurable, and achievable within timelines. For hybrid events, we need to consider in-person, digital, and overarching goals.
“For hybrid events, we need to consider in-person, digital, and overarching goals. How do you want people to feel and respond to the physical elements? How do they link through your event design to the digital elements? And what do we want attendees to take from these experiences?”
How do you want people to feel and respond to the physical elements? How do we link the physical event design to the digital elements? And what do we want attendees to take from these experiences? If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, then you won't be able to judge the relevant success of your brand activation.
Our award-winning project Adobe Field Trip 2020 was a huge success because we asked these questions up front. While everyone was working remotely in 2020, Adobe sought our help to reimagine their annual family-friendly employee activation in a novel way. We designed and delivered a rich programme of virtual and hybrid activities to engage their diverse team across the globe. Guided by a custom-built app, over 5,000 Adobe employees and their families, worldwide, joined in for an array of interactive and gamified activities. The collaborative goals we set at the beginning of the project paid off; they kept us on track, and reminded us to produce more of the content that would keep our audience consistently engaged.
We worked with Adobe again for their 2021 Field Trip, delivering an out-of-this-world iteration with new and interactive elements; furthermore, earlier this month we won the Ex Award for Best Use of Pandemic-Era Event Technology for our work on Adobe Field Trip 2020 - proving this innovative hybrid model was highly engaging.
By developing a clear understanding of an audience and its needs, we can help clients not only reach their goals, but completely outperform them. In March 2021, as we edged towards our second St. Patrick’s Day of the pandemic, we delivered an in-house brand activation to bring the spirit of the Irish pub to remote audiences around the world. We designed and developed a bespoke audio soundboard called Sounds of the Pub that allowed users to customise the atmosphere of their ideal local watering hole, wherever they happened to be celebrating.
We optimistically estimated it could receive approximately 15K hits in the first day - but it hit the right note with audiences around the world, going viral via social media and WhatsApp groups. In the first 48 hours we hit over 300K visitors, and our website traffic increased 4-fold. Audiences around the world responded to a novel, socially-conscious concept, presented at an opportune moment - fully surpassing our expectations for engagement.
Do You Want to Play a Game?
Oh yes we do, forever and always. With the global pivot to digital during the pandemic, gamification made a remarkable comeback, and it has proven once again to be a shortcut to continued audience engagement.
Active participation can be encouraged through incentivised reward systems, from simplified polling, to intricate alternate reality games. Varied challenges can be woven into content to engage attendees at different touchpoints, both in-person and online, giving us a prime opportunity to track what attendees gravitate to. Meanwhile, an event leaderboard elicits urgency, and a sense of competition to maintain the hype.
Our client Irish Life wanted to develop a multi-week employee engagement programme for their teams as they worked from home. With water cooler talk at an all time low, we launched the Digital Olympics, a gamified approach, that quickly saw participation grow to a staggering 83%. Employees competed against other departments, and were encouraged to embrace their creativity along the way - leaving them re-energised, and more importantly, creating a meaningful sense of connection.
In for a Penny, in for a Pound
The bottom line will always be high on the list of priorities. By introducing hybrid elements to an event, you have the ability to open up an entirely new revenue stream. However, we need to be mindful of the experiences that we are creating for both in person, and remote attendees. We work with our clients to design tailored activations that bridge that gap, and subsidiary costs may need to be budgeted to ensure that all participants leave the event having enjoyed comparable experiences.
Taking the time to anticipate and source the right platform to suit your needs is a sure route to more efficient spending in the long run. Both in-person and online events will ultimately require a registration page, and now, most registration systems possess in-built virtual streaming platforms. Our team has vast experience on most of the event platforms on the market, and depending on requirements we can advise our clients on the best platform for their event, from Bizzabo to Hopin; to Splash and Aventri; we utilise their features in a holistic way to ensure our clients achieve both their in-person, and hybrid event goals.
“Larger, more experienced sponsors may seek combination packages to gain access to wider pools of attendees at a global scale, allowing for the generation of more valuable leads.”
As well as creating extra streams of revenue, a hybrid event also increases your opportunities to seek sponsorship. For example, this summer, traditional sporting sponsors found innovative ways to engage their at-home audiences through mixed reality activations, further broadening their exposure. With two distinct brandable areas, you can offer physical, digital, or combination packages.
Digital packages will be more accessible for entry-level businesses looking to gain some traction, and we’ve also seen headline sponsors covering entirely virtual productions. Larger, more experienced sponsors may seek combination packages to gain access to wider pools of attendees at a global scale, allowing for the generation of more valuable leads. We’ve seen some highly lucrative partnerships over the years, and putting together attractive packages may bring a better return on investment than expected.
From Raw Data to Remarkable Insight
Not to go all matrix on you, but we live in a data-driven world. From casual social scrolling, to ordering groceries online - each transaction offers insights which can be analysed to inform strategy. Businesses all over the world use data, and brand experience agencies like Cogs & Marvel are no exception.
In the lead up to an event, tracking the content that prospective attendees engage with assists us in tailoring advertisement campaigns. At the live event, tracking attendee data in real-time greatly supplements our reporting capabilities, helping us to better understand the flow of the event, and how we can improve it in the future.
Virtual events have a much wider scope when it comes to tracking information on session attendance, duration of time that delegates spend in specific areas, and the connections they make. But gathering in-depth data at in-person events is now almost on par.
“With more comprehensive live and digital event data, post-event assessment of hybrid events has become an incredibly streamlined process - music to our ears!”
Linking back to your chosen event platform, many systems now offer check-in prompts at the start of sessions, but wireless transmitters have changed the game when it comes to accuracy of physical attendance. Say goodbye to scanning delegate badges on the doors of conference rooms, these beacons connect and transmit information from smart devices, making location-based searching easier and non-invasive. Similarly to the virtual version, it allows organisers to track attendance and duration spent at sessions, as well as the time spent in ancillary spaces via event mobile apps.
With more comprehensive live and digital event data, post-event assessment of hybrid events has become an incredibly streamlined process - which is music to our ears!
Trust Us: Hybrid is Here to Stay
Over the past 18 months, we have seen that virtual events have the capacity to extend reach tenfold. Providing content that is ‘accessible anywhere’ welcomes more engaged attendees, and in turn, further unique perspectives - giving bigger conversations a chance to flourish. As the world wakes up to a brave new normal, hybrid events are ready to pave the way. They give attendees the autonomy to craft their own experiences, lengthen the lifecycle of content, and sustain the community networks that grow alongside them.
We’ll see many more brand experiences transforming into hybrid spectacles over the next year or so; this model is here to stay, especially as brands work towards designing more eco-friendly experiences.
If you take anything from our insights, let it be that what gets measured gets improved. Effectively harnessing hybrid events has the potential to not only create impactful, meaningful experiences, but also to redefine the entire strategic approach to your brand activations.
Working with us is an experience you don’t want to miss.
Get in touch if you’re ready to push boundaries with our award-winning team!
