Smart Meetings October 2022 Digital Issue - 28

* SMART CHAT
* *
Q&A:
Will B2B Adopt B2C Strategies
to Retain Post-Covid Audiences?
Name: Tony Lorenz
* Global Head of Corporate Development
rEvolution: a collective of marketing
experts leveraging integrated sports
marketing techniques to create rabid fans
* Former CEO of PRA Business Events
hen in-person events emerge from the
current phase of attendees furiously
booking airline tickets to make up for
missed face time over the last 30 months, Tony
Lorenz, veteran events executive and now Global
Head of Corporate Development at rEvolution,
thinks many meeting professionals should consider
borrowing a few pages out of consumer event
playbooks to drive attendance and engagement.
We asked him what that would look like.
Why do you see B2C as the new model
for B2B events?
At the end of the day, B2B event attendees are
consumers. They expect business to business
(B2B) experiences and transactions to
be delivered at a user experience (UX) level
commensurate with their Business to Consumer
(B2C) experiences and transactions. Consumer
event level experiences will be tablestakes for
business event stakeholders.
There will be no more copy and paste of
agendas from 2019. All generations of attendees,
my generation included, may come
back once after two years away, but they won't
engage on a sustained basis with what are now
at times obsolete event delivery models.
Will content delivery methods
have to change?
Over the last two years, attendees learned
they can access content online on their own
schedule. Many who enthusiastically returned to
in-person events found themselves asking, 'Why
am I in this dark room in an uncomfortable chair
if I can get this content online?'
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OCTOBER 2022 * smartmeetings . com
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While many people cannot wait to get back out
there, many others had a taste of staying home
and spending time with family and friends and
they liked it in comparison, as they only have the
reference point of event delivery models from
2019 and prior. Investment in the in-person experience
will now be weighed against the benefit
of another night at home with family and friends.
And if there is a recession, the cost-benefit analysis
will be examined even more closely.
Will putting content online eliminate
the need to attend in person?
Face-to-face is and will always be the most
powerful media. Period. You absolutely do not
get a commensurate experience online. But the
cost-benefit equation has forever changed.
Consumer events have successfully used broadcast
and digital content to drive business models
for decades. Sports have delivered broadcast and
digital content forever. We need to learn from them.
People who watch sports on television and/
or online are even more interested in seeing
the game in-person. It has been my premise for
many years, and the data supports that fact that
digital does not necessarily cannibalize strong
in-person events and experiences. It actually
expands the reach and value of event content.
Delivering some content in advance of an
event will allow people to jump right into the interactive
networking portion of the conference.
Networking doesn't mean dropping a bar
and some hors d'oeuvres into a ballroom and
ushering people in to spend two hours together
around high-tops. Let's borrow from experiences
delivered in consumer activations and make
" Covid has changed expectations forever.
If B2B event stakeholders aren't delivering content interestingly
to their audiences, it is going to be tough sledding for them,
sooner rather than later. "
B2B interactions consistently more memorable,
fun, and meaningful.
Have expectations changed on the event
producer side as well?
We are seeing the end of the blank check from
an event owner simply because an event had
always been delivered in the past. Stakeholders
are finally demanding relevant data and
insights about attendee behavior and how it
drives the business, similar to what stakeholders
experience through their investment in
digital channels. Let's focus our analysis on
business impact. Data must necessarily support
every dollar spent, or that dollar will be
redeployed elsewhere.
The value proposition must work in an inflationary,
recessionary environment. There is no avoiding
market forces. You can only manage to them.
We have a first-ever, zero-based budgeting
environment in the events industry when it
comes to face-to-face. After shrinking event investments
to almost nothing in the darkest hours
of Covid, meeting designers over time will have
to justify and earn back every budget dollar.
All event stakeholders have a need and
opportunity to innovate. Those who do so successfully
will win. Those who revert back to
2019 likely will not.
@ See more Smart Chat conversations at SmartMeetings.com.
Smart Meetings October 2022 Digital Issue

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