Business events play a critical role in building corporate brands. OK Zimbabwe Marketing Director, Juliet Ziswa explains this to the Executive Magazine Editor, Chipo Sibongile Mapungwana in this exclusive interview.
What are the benefits of corporate events to a brand’s strategy?
I would like to call them ‘brand assets” and not events because they are so much more than events to the organisations. These brand properties are critical for many reasons. They bring brands to life in the marketplace. Brands live in the minds of the consumers, thus it’s critical to nurture that relationship. They build brand love through internal and consumer engagements. They help build brand magic and create a connection with consumers, for a long-lasting relationship. Organising our corporate events helps our company to publicise its brand. In addition, it is an excellent way of connecting with our customers across the country.
Our events have had a positive impact on the perception that the various stakeholders of the organisation have of the brand. Through these corporate events, it has been possible to expand the OK brand and make it reach new people, increasing its visibility, and also improving our corporate reputation. Events build Brand equity into the future, support the brand strategy and grow the brand in volume and value.
What are the critical steps in planning for and managing an event such as the OK Grand Challenge?
Firstly, the OK Grand Challenge (OKGC) is a heritage and iconic brand. It lives in the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans. It has become part of the Zimbabwean social fabric. There are five critical steps in managing an asset like the OK Grand Challenge
There is a need to have Clarity on the Purpose, Vision, Propositions and objectives of this key flagship asset. Clarity of purpose is not merely something fluffy and aspirational, with an ‘eye-roll’ towards the ‘creative side’ of the team. It has moved to the centre stage, as evidenced by some of the leading brands around the world, be they heavyweight global powerhouses or smaller fast-growing disruptors because it directly impacts the bottom line positively to drive growth. After all, events are meant to be a call to action (CTA) for your targeted stakeholders and have, in the end, to add to the bottom line of the company’s profits. Purpose enables an organisation and its customers to focus on what matters, and pulls people together through thick and thin — all of which improves long-term performance and commercial returns.
Cross functional collaboration (Cross Functional Team: CFT): It is very important to bring all critical functions together to agree and align on the plan. This also fosters internal buy-in. The coming together of minds from different teams and departments allows you to innovate, bring fresh perspectives, and strive toward shared goals. We have found that one of the best ways to foster innovation within a company is to promote the cross-pollination of ideas. The process may not always be seamless, as too many voices can sometimes drown out good ideas and favour the loudest in the room. However, manage the process well, and you’ll be rewarded richly with vibrant ideas that could only come about through cross-examination and collaboration. We do this by having weekly cross-functional project team meetings with a clear agenda and Gantt chart. We also do dry runs and training with clear scripts across the business and suppliers. One of the largest problems companies face in the digital age is low employee engagement levels. Our goal as management is to expand collaboration to include team members from different departments. When you do this, you are building a winning recipe for higher engagement levels during your events.
In order to infuse energy promote your event internally so as to maximise employee engagement. To garner internal support and engagement, it’s critical to evangelize corporate events to the rest of the company, too. We always over-communicate (and start early!) about the Grand Challenge event, so that every employee is on board and all staff know what they need to do, to make the event a success,
Event partnerships are one of the most effective marketing tactics for businesses wanting to generate new customers and keep existing ones. You have seen how excited OK customers get when the various prizes are announced and in-store when customers win these prizes. It’s electric and all Zimbabweans want to be in on it. When it comes to marketing, event partnerships allow organisations to expand their audience, gain new customers, and work for mutual benefit with other businesses.
What is the impact of the Grand Challenge on OK Zimbabwe’s sustainability agenda?
OKGC plants smiles on our employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and the communities we operate in. We have stories of customers who have won cars that have been turned into cash-generating projects. Our OKGC has changed people’s lives. We also plant smiles across all the regions by connecting with the communities we operate in. This year, we donated an (Nissan) NP200 (pickup truck) to Shungu Dzevana and we also donated cash grocery vouchers to 14 charities across the country
What are some of the challenges that you face and how do you deal with them?
The biggest challenge is always around getting all internal functions to collaborate and rally behind the planning. For this, the weekly CFTs work the magic. We focus on budget management because it’s very easy to go above the budget when dealing with iconic and heritage brands like OKGC. Paying a very close eye on budget tracking is the answer. We open up to External Partnership buy-ins because it’s important to carry suppliers through the thinking and the big idea. Lastly, we look at External environment-related risks such as COVID, stampedes etc. This is dealt with just by planning better.
How do you nurture partnerships?
You are very right, assets like the OKGC can’t be pulled off alone. We always engage our suppliers and all our other stakeholders in advance and we carry them throughout the thinking process. It’s important to land a very clear partnership proposition. By the way, an event partnership is different from an event sponsor in that sponsorship simply means that a business has contributed funds to an event. A partnership, however, is a shared investment in and responsibility for the event and the surrounding marketing. The partners that we do business with during our events have as much to gain from the success of the events because it will entail an increase in revenues for them as well. This means that event partnerships can be riskier than sponsorships because you are depending on the partner to bring something besides money to the table. Make sure to think hard about the partnership you enter into before the contracts are set in stone.
How are innovation and technology changing the event management space?
It’s no longer about just hosting an event, it’s now all about the event organisers appreciating the brand purposes and plans to follow to support the landing of the final events in a modern and innovative way. Everything starts with understanding the BRAND. In-person events have always needed to evolve. Event technology has finally become an integral part of our event strategies. The pandemic sped up the adoption of technology and software solutions in the events industry. After all, virtual and hybrid events fully depend on technology. And as event planners were somewhat forced into a technological era of event planning, many of them started seeing the benefits of event technology
Virtual events have expedited the process for both registration and attendance – all event organisers have to start thinking about what type of experience, content, and engagement they will have to account for following the shift to virtual. Gone are the days of organizations producing one annual sales summit to the next. They will have to start designing additional virtual or hybrid events to fill in the gaps and not to cater to large numbers like they used to so the content and experience are personalized for the audience. Virtual events have indeed brought out the importance of personalized experiences, which will channel into in-person events as well.
For example, event technology allows attendees to message each other before, during, and after the event, making it easier than ever for people to network. Additionally, event planners can inform attendees about any potential schedule changes via event apps much more effortlessly. They can also set up chatbots that answer questions about the event.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit us and the importance of safety and security went through the roof, we turned to event technology to make our events safer. On the more futuristic side, events can implement facial recognition during the check-in process.
What are the biggest lessons in organising the OK Grand Challenge event?
The biggest lesson is around planning especially using CFTs. The rest will follow the energy behind the CFTs. Events of this magnitude need leadership that inspires the CFTs. Organisations should also invest in internal training with clear scripts across the business. Senior leadership support is important in setting the tone of any corporate event. Leadership in event management is not easy. The role of a leader is to unite, bringing together a team to pursue a common goal. Organising events involves dozens of little details and tasks that are each vital to their success. It is only natural to get bogged down in the details, trying to get the next event over the line.
Another key lesson is to negotiate good rates from service providers as some providers may take advantage of the events team due to the many things that need to be done to execute the event.
As I said in the beginning, it is important to have a clear execution plan and don’t forget your return on investment (ROI) calculations upfront
In a nutshell, what are the crucial lessons?
- Planning Planning Planning: Start planning early.
- Have a BIG Idea for people to rally behind.
- Engage internal stakeholders through a CFT.
- Engage external partners with clarity on the proposition to them.
- Embrace Technology without leaving your consumers behind.
- Consistent execution: these brand properties can only become strong with consistent support year-on-year.
This article is reproduced with the kind permission of the Executive Magazine, which first published it under the headline: How to build a corporate brand through sustainable & consistent brand assets.
