Charlie's Ideas

October 29, 2013

Olmeca Altos Tequila Presents Tacos & Tequila

The DJ booth at Tacos & Tequila was set in front of a giant screen that projected guests' Instagram photos and sponsor logos arranged inside a Mondrian-inspired configuration of squares.

Photo: Lauren Matthews/BizBash

Grand Tasting Presented by ShopRite

The Do AC activation also included a Twitter-activated vending machine. Eventgoers tweeted using a specific hashtag to receive a free T-shirt and a chance to win a free trip to Atlantic City.

Photo: Nadia Chaudhury/BizBash

2013 Holiday Party Trends: Decor Budgets Favor Lighting, not Elaborate Flowers

Budgets have started to include room for lighting and rentals once again, but when it comes to tabletop decor, hosts are opting for simple floral arrangements or lots and lots of candlelight. “Clients are choosing lighting over flowers for sure—it creates more of an ambience versus a big, expensive flower arrangement,” Gorjestani says. “Some clients just want simple—greenery and potted plants with twinkle lights.” In addition to candles and programmable lighting, one of the easiest ways to transform a room and make a statement this upcoming season is linens, as companies expand their inventory of patterned and sequined options. Pictured: In lieu of floral centerpieces at last year’s Ronald McDonald House Toronto holiday gala, McNabb Roick Events used crystal candle holders and sequined linens to decorate the tables.

Photo: George Pimentel for Ronald McDonald House

A Mid-Century Mansion on Festival Grounds

A new art piece on this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival grounds called "Mirage," envisioned by festival art curator Paul Clemente and created and executed by experiential design and media company Pearl Media Productions, took the form and architecture of a mid-century Palms Springs mansion, standing at 40 feet tall, 80 feet wide, and 100 feet long. A total of 12 zones of high-tech HD projections made it appear that changing activities were taking place inside the home's rooms and its pool. The project required 18 gigabytes of custom content and more than 70 facets of individual video over the course of the six-day festival.

Photo: Alesandra Dubln/BizBash

1. Put Them Where Guests Snap Pics

If your event has an oversize prop, eye-catching decor piece, or some other feature guests are likely to want to photograph, that element is a smart place for a hashtag—and it's bound to make its way online throughout the night. For instance, a Los Angeles event for British Airways and Variety saw hashtags splashed in the front windshields of traditional British black cars. Similarly, Diesel printed the hashtag for its Reboot campaign last September on large-scale installations in New York's Union Square.

Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Variety

2. Place Them Where Guests Can't Miss Them

Hashtags printed on items that guests hold in their hands throughout the course of an event—say, a fan giveaway at a promotion, or a table card for a seated meal—cannot be easily ignored or forgotten. At Essence magazine's Black Women in Hollywood Oscar luncheon in Beverly Hills, hashtags and handles decked seating cards for easy reference.

Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash

3. Add Them to Activities

When events offer beauty and grooming treatments, guests are likely to feel compelled to share their post-experience transformation, whether it's a new hair look or a fresh manicure. At HBO's Luxury Lounge during the Emmys in Los Angeles, mats under mani stations encouraged social snaps for guests receiving Marc Jacobs Beauty manicures. And at Herbal Essences lounge at BMF's Hard Rock Hotel party during Lollapalooza in Chicago, hashtags on nearby signage encouraged guests to post beauty shots.

Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash

4. Use Them to Encourage Interaction

Hashtags that encourage interaction on site through gamification or another kind of activity are sure to facilitate broad interaction online as well. At Target's Feed U.S.A. event, menus encouraged guests to interact and mingle with tablemates through social media prompts on menus.

Photo: Nilaya Sabnis

5. Create Subliminal Reminders

Sometimes, it's not the biggest message that makes an impact, but the subtle and cleverly rendered one that gets guests' attention. For a look that was well integrated with the venue's existing decor, Pandora launched a new jewelry collection in Los Angeles and emblazoned the Mondrian hotel's bold oversize planters with hashtags.

Photo: Stefanie Keenan

6. Put Them Where Guests Are Likely to Linger

Hashtags get noticed in places where guests spend much of their time on event day—and where they have physical space and incentive to hang out. Certainly, a photo activation is a compelling incentive: Evian's photo activation at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami put a hashtag right above the action, where it was sure to make its way online.

Photo: Elizabeth Renfrow for BizBash

7. Offer Rewards for Using Them

Turning tweeting into a competition drives major social media engagement—not to mention huge buzz at the event. During Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim, prompts directed guests to use a tweet-operated Polaroid vending machine at the Ocean Drive Sun Covered Pool Party.

Photo: Tracy Block for BizBash

8. Pick a Medium That Gets Them Noticed

Hashtags printed on ordinary signage might get overlooked as guests' eyes glaze over to unremarkable displays. But employ a surprising medium to communicate the message and it's sure to get noticed—and photographed for social media. For example, Sonos used lipstick to playfully jot its event hashtag in an unmissable way.

Photo: Alex Porter/Getty Images

9. Make Them Public—In a Big Way

Sure, promoting hashtags within the boundaries of an event can get guests interacting. But put them outside the event's official walls and you're more likely to capture a bigger crowd. At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a 3-D projection of tweets using the official event hashtag appeared on a 35- by 65-foot billboard. The digital activation, created by Incredible Machines, ran at night, while during the day the billboard showed a static image of the hashtag printed on canvas. Similarly, AOL placed its hashtag on a giant billboard outside the venue of its upfront event during Advertising Week in New York.

Photo: Courtesy of Twitter

10. Supply the Technology

Every guest is likely carrying a smartphone in his or her pocket. But making social sharing as easy for guests as possible can only further encourage the behavior—so try printing hashtags right alongside displays of smartphones or other devices. At Samsung's tent at the Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas, attendees ordered free frozen yogurt and designed T-shirts from devices at stations emblazoned with the activation's hashtag.

Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash

11. Make It Edible

Putting hashtags on food isn't just a tasty idea—it's Instagram bait to boot. An event invitation to the Time Warner Cable Studios pop-up in New York before the Super Bowl came with a hashtag printed right on top of a cake.

Photo: Carolyn Curtis/BizBash

12. Make Them Selfie-Friendly

It's no secret that guests want to photograph themselves—and their friends—for their social media profiles. So if you put your message right in their field of view, you'll capture their attention—and social media impressions. At Prive Salon in Los Angeles for the Colgate Optic White beauty bar ahead of the Golden Globes, handles and hashtags decked mirrors.

Photo: Alesandra Dubin/BizBash

4. Grey Goose

Earlier this month, Grey Goose hosted a launch party for its new Cherry Noir flavor at Thompson Hotel in Toronto. At the event, guests could use Instaprint, a location-based photo booth for Instagram designed with a specific hashtag, to print out keepsake photos. Some 365 images were printed out on site, but using the hashtag #cherrynoir, guests created more than 131,000 social media impressions that night.

Photo: George Pimentel

The logo of ESPN the Party, which illuminated the floor near the entrance, included a playful take on the New York subway system with "NYC" mimicking the colors and shapes used to identify the train's different lines. Maxim also used subway imagery on the custom T-shirts worn by staffers.

Epson BrightLink Pro

Available since April, Epson’s BrightLink Pro turns a traditional whiteboard, wall, or virtually any flat surface into a digital presentation space. Speakers can present and annotate on content and then save it, print it, or email it through the network without the need for a computer or special software. The projector can be connected to most tablets, smartphones, documents cameras, and DVD players to share content. The device creates a 100-inch widescreen display area, so users can display presentations and a live meeting at the same time with the split-screen option. In addition, users can connect as many as four BrightLink Pro units that all reside on the same network, regardless of location, for remote collaboration.

Photo: Courtesy of Epson

Electric Slide

Electric Slide launched in February and allows presenters to wirelessly transmit PowerPoint slides, documents, and videos to any screen without the need for a laptop or cables. Users swipe a finger across their smartphone or tablet screen and the presentation is displayed on any screen—across the room or across the Web—in real time. The app creates a unique URL from which the speaker begins and attendees watch the presentation. The app also allows multiple devices to work in sync through Bluetooth. "As a presenter in front of a room of people, you’ve got enough on your plate without worrying about why you can’t get your computer connected or whether those on the phone can see your slides. We’re also seeing users who just don’t want to lug a laptop around anymore," said Jim Phelan, co-founder of parent company Elucidate.

Photo: Courtesy of Elucidate

SlideShark

SlideShark, an app for viewing, presenting, and sharing PowerPoint presentations on iOS devices, launched a new version in March that enables meeting attendees to access slides on their own device, whether they are in the same room or across the globe. SlideShark Broadcasting creates a unique URL for the presentation so guests can view the session in real time from any Internet-connected device. Presenters receive visual alerts when someone enters and exits the broadcast. After the meeting, speakers can share the slides online and access analytics to track viewing. The new version of SlideShark also adds drawing capabilities that gives presenters a choice of six colors and three sizes to highlight elements of the slides.

Photo: Courtesy of SlideShark

Moxtra

Moxtra is a collaboration app that functions as a mobile binder. Presenters can collect various multimedia files into the app and then record their voice and annotations on top of the files to create a video or real-time presentation. Multiple users can collaborate on presentations using Moxtra Meet. Evernote, Salesforce.com, and Kaffeine are also integrated into the platform, so users can access content from those applications for presentations, as well. Moxtra launched in January.

Photo: Courtesy of Moxtra

Prezi

Zooming presentation platform Prezi marked its fourth anniversary this spring by passing the 20 million user mark and adding sound capabilities. Other new features added in the past year include the ability to create 3-D backgrounds from a 2-D image. Users can load as many as three background layers and the system will cross-fade as the presenter zooms in and out.

Photo: Courtesy of Prezi

Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is a free iPad app to create presentations. The product launched in August 2012 and released version 2.0 in March. The update adds more photos to the image library, better image management features, new list layouts, and enhanced options for creating charts and graphics. The app automatically offers image suggestions based on keywords in the slide (pulling images from the photo-sharing site Creative Commons), or users can import their own photos. The free app provides five free themes with the option to purchase additional themes for $1.99 each. Once created, a Haiku Deck can be viewed on any browser. It can also be shared on social networks and through email or embedded on a Web site or blog.

Photo: Will Foster

Signage at the event reminded guests to keep its custom app running on their smartphones in order to activate the iBeacons.

Photo: Debbie Bragg

At 9 p.m., guests received a notification in the event app to visit the main bar to sample a drink made with Malibu rum and served in coconut shells.

Photo: Debbie Bragg

Each section of the party was designed around a specific Pernod Ricard UK brand, such as the Perrier-Jouët Enchanted Garden.

Photo: Debbie Bragg

Pernod Ricard UK replicated the atmosphere of a traditional English country pub—with rustic woods and faux taxidermy—for the main bar at its Summer Party. Organizers named the bar “the National,” in reference to the company’s overall marketing theme of “Shaping the Nation’s Drinking Experiences.”

Photo: Debbie Bragg

The app include drink recipes and information about Pernod Ricard UK brands.

Photo: Debbie Bragg

Faux grass covered the bar in the Jacob's Creek section of the party, which was dedicated to the brand's sponsorship of Wimbledon.

Photo: Debbie Bragg

Beyond Verbal’s Moodies app records the user’s voice and then analyzes elements such as pitch, timing, volume, and energy to determine the person’s emotional state.

Photo: Courtesy of Beyond Verbal