The Power of Live Events as Brand Experiences — Meetings Innovation Report

The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is a weekly newsletter defining the future of business events by deciphering disruptive strategies that improve engagement and knowledge sharing. Subscribe.

The Future of Meetings & Events

According to last year’s EventTrack 2015 survey, prepared by the Event Marketing Institute and experiential marketing agency Mosaic, marketers reported a 6% rise in their event budgets overall for the year.

More telling, over 58% of them said those budgets were funded directly by corporate, rather than being scavenged from other marketing budget buckets, versus 35% who said the same in 2014. Furthermore, 65% of marketers reported seeing a direct sales lift as the result of experiential marketing, compared to 59% in 2014.

Live events are growing in scale and sophistication in 2016. Chief marketing officers are investing more in event and experiential marketing because live brand experiences are proving their ability to engage audiences effectively in an increasingly noisy world filled with so much daily digital marketing. Read the full story here.

— Greg Oates, Senior Editor

Social Quote of the Day

“Meeting planners told to ditch the ‘millennial’ buzzword” via @meetpie cc @Jackiemulls: j.mp/1UDqNhdpic”

— @IMEXMiguel on Twitter

Next Generation Event UX

CMOs Are Investing More in Live Meetings and Events to Engage Audiences Better: Chief marketing officers are investing more in event and experiential marketing these days, because live brand experiences are proving their ability to engage audiences more in an increasingly noisy world filled with so much digital marketing. Read more at Skift

Leadership Summits That Work: Summits can serve as a powerful catalyst to align leaders, develop solutions, introduce new strategies, and fuel collaboration across the organization. But many companies squander this rare opportunity to harness the collective knowledge of their frontline leaders. Read more at Harvard Business Review

You Want to Know How to Build an Audience? Read This: Almost nobody cares about you. The default position of the general public, of all your audience and all your readers, is that they honestly don’t give a damn about you. They might read your blog, but they’re not going to automatically want to be involved with you unless you do something about it. Read more at Medium

Behind The Evolution of Conference Space: A new survey of global meeting professionals from the IACC Meeting Room of the Future project tracks the evolution of conference space over the last five years and the next five. Interactive tech is naturally the big trend. Read more at Convene

The World’s Most Elite Conference Will Discuss Something Called ‘The Precariat’:  Politicians and power brokers are meeting in Dresden this week at the super-secret Bilderberg Meeting. They are as taken aback as anyone else by the travails of the increasingly marginalized masses (aka The Precariat), who are fueling the rise of populist politicians like Donald Trump. Read more at Quartz

Tourism & Hospitality

CEOs of 5 Leading Hotel Brands on Their Hopes and Fears in 2016: Airbnb, disease, terrorism, the TSA, Donald Trump, and the best business climate ever mark the biggest trends impacting hospitality and tourism today, according to the CEOs of Marriott, Hilton, InterContinental, Choice, and Loews Hotels, who spoke at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference this week. Read more at Skift

Tech Companies Are Taking Over the Beaches at Cannes Lions: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Spotify are launching beach activations during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this month. The first “Facebook Beach” and “YouTube Beach” illustrate the rise of companies investing in experiential marketing platforms. Read more at AdWeek

The Meetings Industry Is Launching a New Advocacy Campaign, But Will it Work? The new Meetings Mean Business ad campaign is timed to coincide with the national political conventions to impress upon governments that they should support hospitality and tourism’s efforts to attract meetings and conventions. Read more at Skift

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The Skift Meetings Innovation Report is curated by Skift senior editor Greg Oates [go@skift.com]. The newsletter is emailed every Wednesday.

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