Hosting your own event presents a unique opportunity for communication. Unlike an ad on the internet or in print, you don’t have to battle for people’s attention. You have an audience that is both a) extremely interested in listening and b) captive. This is why it’s extremely important you think about the message you want to communicate (and who you want to help you do so). What do you want your audience to remember when they go home? What is the essential point you’re trying to convey? It can help to consider this through two lenses – the substance and the style.
Substance
Think about who you’re talking to. Is the event crowd full of retail customers? B2B clients? Investors? What’s important to them can differ, so you don’t want to speak to one as if they were the other. Organisations are complicated entities, so it’s important to know who’s listening in order to understand what should be prioritised.
The best way to communicate a message clearly is to know it well yourself.
But don’t think only about the ‘what’ – the ‘why’ is important too. For example, the story of the apparel company TOMS is arguably more powerful than their product. For every pair of shoes a customer buys, TOMS donates another pair to a person in need. Were TOMS to speak at an event full of customers about their sales numbers and profits for the quarter, their message would be way off point – the story and the ‘why’ communicates more value to customers than financial figures do.
Style
Thinking about style is not superficial – it’s simply a matter of ensuring how you deliver your message is consistent with the value of the message itself. There’s a reason we don’t wrap Christmas presents in newspaper; packaging the earrings for your Mum in yesterday’s daily would only negate the thought you put into the gift itself. Like it or not, presentation communicates value.
When it comes to metaphorically wrapping a message in nice festive paper, CMS Australasia are the professionals. An audiovisual production company in operation since 1992, we’ve helped endless groups communicate their points at their respective events. Whether it be through an in-house produced video, motion graphics or a sound and light display, CMS knows how to make an event’s style match your organisation’s substance.
For more information on how we can take your event to the next level, request a proposal today.