Brandfuel won ‘Conference/Exhibition of the Year’ at The Drum Awards for Experience with its project for the Advertising Association. Called ‘Reset 2021’ this fully interactive virtual conference and exhibition was designed to replace its annual summit and the ISBA’s annual conference. Here, the team behind this winning entry explains the strategy behind it.
What does Covid-19 mean for the UK advertising industry? That was the question that brought the three big advertising industry organizations together for the first time in their history to stage the Reset 2021 conference.
The Advertising Association, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) wanted to give their members the opportunity to network with senior and influential figures from brands, agencies, media owners, tech platforms and the government, and to hear their ideas at the start of a critical year for British advertising.
Our objectives
Brandfuel’s mission was to create a fully interactive virtual conference and exhibition on January 28, 2021 that would attract, inform and educate delegates, and encourage high-level networking.
Reset 2021 was designed to replace the Advertising Association’s summit, LEAD, and ISBA’s annual conference, both of which attracted more than 400 high-level attendees last year. Issues to be covered included how to build public trust in advertising, how far digital advertising could boost Britain’s creative economy, and how the government’s proposed 2022 ban on advertising food with high fat, salt and sugar content would have far-reaching and unintended consequences for the industry.
With an attendee list consisting of the combined members and wider networks of the three organizations, Reset provided an unrivalled opportunity to meet senior representatives across the entire advertising landscape. As an agency committed to supporting the future of UK advertising, Brandfuel partnered with the three organizations to deliver the event at a reduced cost and we also had our own partner exhibition stand.
Our challenges
This was the first time that Brandfuel had created a platform such as this, and our goal was to create an engaging space that would encourage delegates to linger and explore. Another challenge was that we wanted to provide a chat function that allowed attendees to find a delegate individually or by their company name and to be able to video call them. Finally, we needed to create nine different interactive partner stands for the exhibition space for nine very different clients.
Clear strategy
From the start, we took the decision to design, develop and build our own solution as the larger event platforms did not address the …….