Conceptual Event Design - Case Study Example

Creative Writing Conceptual Event Design Word count: 1498 Task The Brief Client Company: Benefit Weare one of the most successful cosmetic companies dealing with production of conceptually new unique beauty products offering a fresh view on the world of makeup. Our company has been working on principally new solutions in the beauty sphere for more than 30 years being a part of the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate. Ford sisters, the co-founders of our company, have managed to create and promote an innovative idea of light and natural yet good-looking makeup and create a kind of ‘perfect’ makeup company developing products that would turn makeup into a playful and gamy process. What began as The Face Place, a tiny makeup store in 1976, later turned into an extremely successful and beneficial company instantly working on improvement of beauty industry. Our strategy is taking laughter as the best makeup and orienting on development of products that would add fun and color to lives of our precious customers. Our primary purpose is to keep on working on the unique and innovative makeup products yet producing those which are already appreciated in the makeup enthusiasts’ community as well as among professionals. Our current objective is to organize a memorable and grandiose anniversary celebration devoted to Benetint, the very top Benefit’s bestseller. The way we want it to be organized is a spring beauty festival - yet innovative and breathtaking. The main point of the event is combine celebration, encouraging our loyal clients and attracting new ones. We want it to be divided into two days and be accompanied with a promo campaign across the United States. At the same time, we would like to add special offers on our website related to the anniversary. In other words, we want to show our customers that we love them and enhance their interest in our conception and products. The festival itself should be organized indoors. As we consider this event to be rather remarkable we want the celebration to be held in five largest cities of the US including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia. Each venue should have the capacity for hosting at least 500 people at once. The Company is ready to spend a considerable amount of money on the celebration, so your creative group can feel rather free in embodying their ideas into the event program. However, one of the most important things we expect from your agency is creativity and innovative solutions that would impress both loyal and potential customers. Task 2. Event Design Agency: MBB Events Before proceeding with the organization of the event and fulfilling the given wishes of the client company, one should consider that the event we are about to organize is special for the company – it is a kind of beauty feast marking the anniversary of their most popular product creation. Thus, as the event is special for the Benefit Cosmetics company, we should do our best to make this event special for the customers, too. To create bright impressions for all the participants and visitors of the festival, a “wow” factor should be used (Malouf, 1999). The nowadays’ event management is aimed predominantly at delivery of experiences to the customers who have grown rather sophisticated (Berridge, 2008). Nowadays, consumers need more to be impressed and attracted, they need more encouragement and brighter impressions. That is why, our key task would be to provide all the opportunities for them to get such impressions and stay loyal to the client company in future. Organizing an event is perceived as a purposeful activity (Berridge, 2007) which uses design methods and tools to solve a “problem” and to stand a challenge the client company faces with dignity. Design of an event incorporates two facets – aesthetic look and feeling along with the functional qualities of the organized event (Adema and Roehl, 2010). Everything in the event should be designed: décor, the key concept, the venue, entertainment program etc. (Bowdin, 2011). Event design itself activates all the 5 senses of the visitor building up his/her experience (Ferdinand, 2012). Every detail should be elaborated and taken into account in order to reach the main big purpose – provide the unforgettable experience for the participants and visitors. In fact, experience delivery is the key element of event planning and impressing the customers has become the main task in the event industry (Gilmore, 2014). Thus, we should trace the development of event management trends and follow them or offer our own. The event would be called Benefit Glam Up Festival. First of all, we should define the target audience of the company and – respectively – of the festival. And it becomes obvious that we deal with generally female audience. Thus, gender turns out to be the factor of influence that will define the overall design of the venue and the event on the whole. The second thing we need to think of is the concept and the shape of the form of the event. The customer wanted it to be a festival held in 4 largest American cities simultaneously, so the program of the festival would be almost the same in all the cities, yet being very vibrant and interesting. To define the key concept of the beauty fest, we need to resort to the general ideas of Benefit, and they state that the best makeup is laughter, so we need to make the program playful and absorbing. At the same time, Benefit promotes the idea of natural beauty producing no heavy makeup products and focusing on light textures and natural colors. So, there comes the conclusion that the idea our event will be focused on is glorifying natural beauty and teaching women how to enhance it with help of Benefit products. The festival will involve several types of activities and focus on makeup workshops by professional makeup artists. Interactive makeup workshops would encourage many women to participate and appreciate the advantages of Benefit products. Taking the workshop format into account, the chosen venues will be indoors. The interior design will be made in girly pastel colors alike to the design of Benefit products packaging. Generally, the program of the two-day festival will consist of: Benefit production exhibition on the entrance (with opportunity to purchase); Introductory lecture on the ideology and products (Jane and Jean Ford, the co-founders of the company, and Maggie & Annie Ford Danielson are desirable as the lecturers and the key representatives of the company), media presentation; Interactive makeup workshops (held five times a day and hosting up to 60 participants at once); Pin-up photo-shoots with professional photographers and makeup artists using Benefit products; Live music performances of popular musicians in the evening (e.g. Sia, Echosmith, Banks, The Neighbourhood); Attendees will receive a mini version of Benetint on the entrance. Along with the main events, we would organize innovative promo campaign involving portable beauty salons in ten largest cities and email distribution of invitations to the online shop clients (10% discount for purchase during the festival). Concerning the brand shop, we would develop several special offers that would be relevant during the week preceding the festival weekend. Task 3 We consider the proposed event scenario to be rather fresh and innovative for several reasons. According to Gilmore’s (2014) most recent event trends, offering experience, interaction, a sense of place to the visitors are the key points of the modern event management. Managing the celebration in the proposed way will allow achieving all the above mentioned goals. Including interactive makeup tutorials and involving portable beauty salons and organizing express pin-up photo sessions will enable interaction and sense of participation in customers, whereas multifaceted activities during the festival days will build up rich experience and create strong impressions. Interaction presupposed by the design of the event takes place during the whole festival and is traced almost in each type of its activity: attendees build up their experience participating in makeup tutorials, communicating with the representatives of the company during the introduction section, take part of photo shoots and, of course, get involved in communication with each other. According to Schumpeter’s domains of innovation, one of them is generation of principally new or improved services (Schumpeter, 1934). In our case, the innovative value of the proposed event design lies in its hybridity. Such hybrid event incorporates different types of activity within the borders of one venue, activating the senses of the attendees and allowing them to form their experiences and impressions based on various ‘sources’. The innovative value of the proposed even design also concerns the use of technological means of product presentation (e.g. media presentations, email invitations and electronic discounts). And, in conclusion, such multifaceted combination of various activities in one event would allow forming a fuller impression in the attendees as they will be able to listen to the introductory lecture, watch the presentation, look at the overall venue design, try the products during the workshop (and immediately purchase if they want), participate in several kinds of activities and enjoy live performance at the end. References: Adema, K. L, Koehl, W. S. (2010) ‘Environmental scanning the future of event design’, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 29, 199-207. Berridge, G. (2007) Events design and experience, Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Berridge, G. (2008) Designing event experiences, The Routledge Handbook of Events, 273-288. Bowdin, G., Allen, J., O’Toole, W., Harris, R., & McDonnell, I. (2011). Events Management (3rd edition). Oxford, England: Butterworth-Heinemann. Ferdinand, N., Kitchin, P. (2012) Events Management: An International Approach, SAGE. Gilmore, A. The Top Four Meeting Trends, Retrieved 23 August from: http://www.successfulmeetings.com//strategy/meeting-strategies/the-top-four-meeting-trends-of-2014/ Malouf, L. (1999) Behind the Scenes at Special Events, Hoboken: J.H. Wiley. Scumpeter, J. A. (1934) The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry Into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle, Transaction Publishers. Read More