As part of their featured story in the August 2020 issue of Event Marketer magazine, I joined the conversation to address the challenges of “creative suffocation” for virtual events:

Eager to flex some creative muscle and transform an agenda into a journey, event marketers are starting to embrace a multi-platform approach for virtual events that leaves them free of just one environment (that could potentially fail) and, instead, leans heavily on a mix of social media engagements, personalized recommendations, broadcasts and video conferencing-style sessions.

The shift to virtual requires a deep recognition of the fact that everything you know about your attendees has been turned upside down as they tune in from home or socially distanced offices.

“We’re not linear people; we’re task-oriented people when we are on our computer, so the smart event agendas aren’t a Netflix, where you hope people will check it all out, they’re an Amazon with a search box,” says Brent Turner, svp-head of strategy, digital and data at Opus Agency. “What if this is mobile-first instead, what if we’re hosting an audio-only session where we tell everyone to go outside for the session; what if we host a sponsored fireside chat that kicks attendees over to a sponsor’s website. It doesn’t have to be a platform; it just has to bring people together with interesting things.”

And that’s a strategy certainly worth the extra screen time.