Evolution Lab
Success achieved
Upscaling a small seminar into a full-day industry gathering for 200+ people.
- Website
- http://eaca.eu/evolab2017/
- Project dates
January - November 2017
Project team
- Dominic Lyle, Director General
- Tamara Daltroff, Director of European Affairs
- Sofia Karttunen, European Affairs Officer
- Stevan Randjelovic, European Affairs Manager
- Pauline De Pelsmacker, Education & Training Manager
- Kasia Gluszak, Communications & Events Manager
- Gintare Medisauskaite, Communications & Events Assistant
- Alexandra Nicu, Education & Training Assistant
Tools & Systems
In order to stimulate discussion and increase participation, we employed an online tool called ‘Slido’. It enabled the audience to take part in live polls during the panel discussions and to add words to electronic mind maps relevant to the topics being covered. Besides engaging the audience, these polls and mind maps were used to visualise the discussions and with the help of the moderator, they also served as reflection points for the speakers.
In addition to above, the members of audience had an opportunity to use a microphone to ask questions at the end of every panel. We also encouraged discussion on Twitter with the hashtag #EvoLab.
Prior to the event, we promoted the event extensively on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and used an event management platform called ‘c-event’ to register participants online, generate invoices and print receipts.
Introduction
‘Evolution Lab’ is an annual three-day industry gathering organised by EACA. The purpose is to offer our members and other stakeholders from across Europe a unique opportunity to network and exchange best practices in a professional but relaxed atmosphere.
Evolution Lab consists of EACA agency member meetings, an industry conference, a meeting of academics in the commercial communications sector and the Euro Effie Awards Gala, rewarding the most effective marketing campaigns in Europe.
The basic idea behind the EvoLab conference is to have one specific theme relevant to the advertising industry each year. Our aim is to create positive discussion by focusing on one topic that is interesting and offers value to today’s admen and women.
The purpose of this submission is to highlight the role of the industry conference. Having started off in 2015 as a small seminar for EACA members, our goal was to transform it into a full-day open discussion forum by 2017. Making the conference more attractive and opening it to a wider public, would greatly enhance the quality of the whole annual gathering.
Discovery
Brainstorming on the topic started in the beginning of the year, in order to identify a theme that would be relevant to the conference audience in 2017. This research consisted of examining wider economic developments and trends and consulting trade magazines and professionals in our industry. In the end, the development of new technology and especially artificial intelligence was considered the biggest challenge/opportunity of industrial transformation. The title of the 2017 edition became ‘Advertising in the Age of Artificial Intelligence’.
Research was also undertaken to find relevant speakers for the conference. After deciding on the programme, we used our network of members and different partners and conducted independent research online to identify top speakers for each panel/presentation. The plan was to create a mix of nationalities, small and large agencies, industry players, academics and policymakers whilst striking a good gender balance.
In order to find a suitable location for the conference, we engaged in consultations with different venues. Our objective was to find a place that would be sponsored or would be available at minimal cost. For this reason, we conducted research and sent enquiries to different start-up venues, low cost venues and possible sponsors. After initial consultations, we had a meeting with BNP Paribas Fortis Bank with whom we formed a partnership, being offered their centrally located 250-seat state-of-the-art auditorium and catering for the entire day of the conference for no cost to us.
Objectives
The primary objective of the Evolution Lab conference was to upgrade the previous smaller seminar format into a broader, full-day conference attracting more people. This would be achieved by:
- Defining an interesting topical theme, subtopics, presentations and panels which created value for our members
- Securing appropriate speakers and a professional moderator
- Finding a fully sponsored venue
- Attracting an audience of 150+ people
- Creating a full-day format
- Forming marketing partnerships
- Ensuring a strong presence in the social media and promoting the use of hashtag #EvoLab
- Creating a successful and long-lasting conference concept which can be developed in future years
Activities
The Evolution Lab conference used to be a small seminar and for this reason, the preparations that took place were minimal. In 2017, the scale was brought up from about 60 attendees to 200+. The process required thorough planning as the conference was to be organised only with a small team of association employees (8). In order to be successful, a checklist of different tasks and their timeline was created. The progress was measured through regular team meetings.
Innovation
The Evolution Lab conference is a unique industry forum given that it is backed by member meetings and the Euro Effies Awards Gala. By opening the conference to a greater audience, it provides an easy-to-access sneak peek into our industry, making it better known and at the same raising curiosity regarding the related events of the annual gathering.
For this reason, we were happy to host some non-EACA and non-advertising industry members to learn more about who we are and what we do. This is especially so for students who will join the industry in due course. To encourage them to think about the main themes of the conference, we promised to publish the best blog post written by a student on our website. It is available here.
We also applied innovative elements to the conference in the form of the interactive online tool called ‘Slido’ that engages the audience, makes them think about the state of play and possible answers to different industry concerns and enables them to shape the course of the discussion. This tool received very good feedback afterwards.
Marketing
The starting point for marketing the event was the strong network of EACA members which covers nearly 30 countries and all the major advertising networks. Our member associations, agencies and educational institutes effectively passed on information about the conference, which we sent in newsletters and presented in advocacy calls and prior meetings with them. As the seats in the auditorium were limited to 250, our approach was first through our own members. To increase the attraction, we had developed an impressive line-up of speakers from the advertising world to support the marketing of the conference, as explained in more detail at the end of this submission in the ‘other’ field.
For the first time EACA also formed partnerships with a selection of media companies to advertise and report on our conference. We teamed up with The World Advertising Research Center (WARC), AdForum, Fonk, E!Sharp and Media Marketing publications and look forward to expanding the group of partners even further in the future. These companies all placed information about the conference on their websites and event calendars. A column about the event published, for example, in WARC can be found here.
Partnerships were also formed with six other Brussels-based associations representing different parts of the advertising industry, such as advertisers, TV and print media and digital and ad tech companies. Due to our existing strong links, our colleagues in these associations were interested in helping to market the conference by promoting it within their networks, on their websites, social media channels and/or newsletters and sending their representatives to attend the event.
Challenges
The 2017 edition of the Evolution Lab conference was a big step up compared to the previous years in terms of the length of the programme and the participant numbers. The biggest challenge was to manage such an event for the first time with a small team of eight people.
On top of this, two staff members could not join to help at the conference venue, as they were responsible for organising the Euro Effies Awards gala on the same evening. For this reason, the organisation required thorough planning and hiring a few external people (designer, photographer and two students to help at the registration desk and to pass the microphones around).
We also received some help with the audiovisual arrangements and catering from the conference venue. With clear tasks and instructions this was enough and we managed to deliver the conference in an efficient and successful way.
Another challenge was an unexpected flight cancellation of one speaker in the early morning of the conference day. We immediately explored different options and made a decision to extend some parts of the morning programme and the lunch break to accommodate the gap. The cancellation was unfortunate and there were no other flights that would have made the speaker land in time to present even at a later stage during the day. However, our moderator was humorous about the missing speaker and the audience did not mind to have a bit more time to eat and network during the lunch break.
Achievements
Based on the feedback of the conference, we achieved all the goals we set:
- Defining an interesting topical theme, subtopics, presentations and panels which created value for our members
- Securing appropriate speakers and a professional moderator
- inding a fully sponsored venue
- Attracting an audience of 150+ people
- Creating a full-day format
- Forming marketing partnerships
- Ensuring a strong presence in the social media and promoting the use of hashtag #EvoLab
- Creating a successful and long-lasting conference concept which can be developed in future years
In addition to far surpassing the target number of attendees, it was a pleasant surprise how popular the event proved to be among the invited students. In the future, we will impose a cap of 30 seats for students instead of 50+, to have a more representative audience. Besides the well-roundedness of the audience, another objective which could have been improved is forming more marketing partnerships at an earlier stage. As this was the first full-day EvoLab conference, the outcome we reached was, however, already solid.
Targets & Statistics
We launched the EvoLab concept in 2015, principally for our own members who attended our annual gathering. The decision to expand the reach of the conference was a deliberate strategic choice in 2017 to create a greater impact for the Association. Compared to 60 registrations in 2015 and 87 registrations for the seminar that took place in 2016, the 2017 edition of the conference was a major improvement. We received altogether 295 registrations for the conference. Given the auditorium’s seat capacity of 250, it was actually overbooked.
The participants of the latest Evolution Lab conference consisted of advertising and communications professionals from all levels of seniority, both EACA members and non-members. A number of policymakers and journalists also participated in the event in addition to representatives of our media and association partners.
Finally, given EACA’s education platform ‘European Institute for Commercial Communications Education (edcom)’, we accepted registrations from academics that belonged to the network and students finalising their Bachelor’s programme at three respective institutes of higher education in Belgium. All in all, the audience came from all over Europe: France, the UK, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy.
Attendance fluctuated during the day as delegates came and went, but the average number of participants can be estimated at between 200 and 220, with 245 of the 295 registered delegates attending at some point. This is a significant step up from previous years, when only direct members of EACA and a handful of speakers attended.
Financials
The investment for this event was minimal, due largely to the very generous sponsorship of the BNP Paribas Fortis Bank.
All the speakers brought their own A/V support, and the EACA team was responsible for any additional visual material production. The c-vent registration platform was already paid for as we use it for the Euro Effies Gala and no additional fees were incurred. We used an online tool called ‘Slido’ to enable the audience to take part in live polls during the panel discussions, this cost €249.00.
We subsidised the travel and accommodation of those speakers who came from outside Belgium, a total cost of €2396.00.
All administration was handled in house.
The income from the event came from ticket sales of €75.00 per place plus an allocation of €55.00 per place for delegates who bought a combined ticket for the conference and the Euro Effies Gala that evening. The total revenue was €4275.00.
What would we do differently?
We were satisfied with the target number of attendees being surpassed. Furthermore, it was a pleasant surprise how popular the event proved to be among the invited students. However, in the future we are looking into setting a cap of student attendees (30 instead of 50+) in order to ensure a better balance among the attendees. Some of the students could be replaced by young professionals who have already started careers in advertising agencies.
Besides the well-roundedness of the audience, another objective which could be improved is forming more marketing partnerships at an earlier stage. As this was the first full-day EvoLab conference, the concept was new and unknown to all the media companies and publications that we approached. Now that the event has become slightly better known, including wide social media coverage and this nomination at the Association Awards, the task is likely to become easier for the next editions of the conference. All in all, the success with the media partnerships was solid for the first round of the full-day conference format and it is a good place to build on in the future. The same applies to finding more sponsorship partners.
Feedback & Testimonials
The conference proved to be a success, as demonstrated by the positive feedback of the participants and the speakers at the event, which was overbooked. As mentioned above, we received 295 registrations for the 250 available seats.
The results of the feedback form show that 93.8 % of the participants rated the overall organisation of the event as 4 or 5 out of 5. When asked whether the participants would be interested in attending another event organised by EACA, the respective value was 81.3 %. Twitter statistics also point to a strong public reach. The event hashtag #EvoLab had 625,015 impressions and a reach of 328,748. Combined with the 1,285,156 impressions and reach of 871,123 of the Euro Effies the same evening, the whole Evolution Lab gathering can be considered to have generated a remarkable reaction on social media.
‘A great pleasure for us to work with such a well organised team!’
Ann Lagring, Event Manager at BNP Paribas
‘I very much enjoyed the conference, the discussion as well as the Gala dinner. Again many thanks for smooth organization and hope to see you next time!’
Ivona Skultetyova, PhD Candidate at Tilburg University
‘Great day with the @EACA_eu in Brussels chatting #AI’
Liam Brennan, Global Director of Innovation Programmes, MediaCom (Twitter)
‘Talk about a good start! Free croissants and coffee when arriving at #EvoLab this morning. Curious about the rest of the day #ICMevolution’
Margaux Quirin, student (Twitter)
Wider impact
The aim of the event was to provide food for thought for the attendees and EACA members regarding a hot topic in the industry - the use of artificial intelligence in advertising - in addition to providing a place for networking. The conference succeeded in stirring conversation in this field and brought people working in/with advertising together.
The panels of the conference sought to focus on four different topics: the effect of AI on the advertising industry in general; what action agencies should take in order to be leaders in the field; how higher educational needs would change to accommodate AI and what the ethical implications for advertising could be.
Besides contributing to industry-level discussions, the conference strengthened our association’s and sector’s place in EU policy-related discussions, especially the last panel on ethics, which touched on European policy trends in the form of the upcoming EU data protection regulations and the European Commission’s communication on artificial intelligence.
The feedback and evaluation scores of the conference are discussed later in this submission.
