| EVENT REPORT 04.30.03 12:00 AM |
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| The Weather Channel Ties Brand to Seasons |
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| If you haven't already heard, the Weather Channel is not about the weather, it's about life. Actually, it's about weather, too, but the channel's marketers want the brand to be about more than that. So the cable channel gathered a group of advertisers and executives at Splashlight Studios for a full sensory experience of the way its viewers' lives are tied to the channel. "We wanted to change the perception of the Weather Channel and show our advertisers that it's about life and the bigger emotional connection people have to the weather and its affects on their everyday lives," said Mark Richardson, vice president of strategic marketing for the Weather Channel. Wonya Lucas, the Weather Channel's executive vice president of marketing, worked with event marketing firm RPMC to plan the event. |
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PHOTO GALLERY |
 | | At the Weather Channel's four season-themed party for advertisers, the autumn section had a quaint wood station with fruits and cheeses surrounded by stacks of hay and dried autumn leaves. |
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 | | In the winter area, bartenders poured martinis down an ice slide. |
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 | | Outside on the patio deck, summer was celebrated underneath a clear enclosed tent and colorful umbrellas. |
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 | | For the spring season, green tables had live flowers by Botanica, scented candles burning and wooden folding chairs. |
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Guests entered the event through a lobby filled with fog, potted palms and people in white raincoats as if they were on some Amazonian reserve. It was a sampling of effects that partygoers would experience once they took the elevator up to the main space, where Corporate Events Manhattan created four different environments with food and decor that reflected the seasons, and Big Wave International projected video images of outdoor activities specific to each season.
In the autumn section, a quaint wood station provided fruits and cheeses surrounded by stacks of hay and dried autumn leaves. Dried branches with berries decorated the walls, and Big Wave lit the area in warm red and orange gels. For the winter part of the space, small white tables and stools sat around frosted tree branches decorated with blue Christmas lights. There was a small seared salmon station made of actual ice blocks carved to look like winter garden trellises, and bartenders poured martinis down an ice slide.
Outside on the patio deck, summer was celebrated underneath a clear enclosed tent with a sprawling kite suspended above guests' heads. Fold-out patio chairs and wood tables were spread out next to tin buckets with striped throw pillows inside. Heat lamps placed around the deck helped to heat the space to the right temperature for guests to enjoy the sangria bar.
For the spring season, Big Wave lit the main performance area with soft green lighting. The green tables had live flowers by Botanica, scented candles burning and wooden folding chairs. Guests could sip apple martinis near a babbling brook station set up to the side of the stage with a small stream flowing around pieces of seasoned fried chicken and sesame noodles in peanut sauce.
After an hour of mingling and interacting in the season-specific spaces, Weather Channel executives gathered everyone to the stage for a speech about daily life and, of course, the weather, before singer Michelle Branch sang a few songs from her new album. To drive home the idea that the station is really about what life will be like today—not just cold fronts—guests got their own MP3 players with the Weather Channel logo to take their own music with them for various seasonal activities.
—Paul Ohan
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