How Event Planners Can Switch Gears Now

The event industry is ill-prepared to deal with any kind of crisis. Terroristic attacks, a financial crisis or a pandemic : every time, event planners are the first in marketingland to be cut down.

Moreover, competition in the eventplanning industry is ferocious.

On top of that, corporate event planners have a clear image problem, which is detrimental for their long term survival. The tough truth is that the corporate world considers event planners as "party planners". While event planners are in reality strategic partners for brands. 

Event planners know how to generate brand experiences, through live events in which brands create a relationship with their target group. A well organized event results in brand ambassadors.

 

But still, event planners suffer during every kind of crisis. The eventplanning industry is too vulnerable, while the talent of event planners is undeniable : creativity, emotional intelligence, able to adapt to any kind of situation, insights in brand strategy, flexible to work within every type of budget and empathy towards various groups of people (event planners work for the president, but also for butchers, fashion designers and cleaning companies).

According to me, event planners should impose these talents on the digital world. Digital marketing is still stuck in a technical and tactical phase. Read all blogposts about digital marketing and you will notice : it is all about hacks, tricks, automation and tactics. Rarely a post on how to create an emotion or an experience for the people consuming digital content.

That's where empathy comes into play. Why are people on digital media? To connect, to get information or to be entertained. Guess where the biggest growth potential is...

Event planners can collaborate with a technical digital partner, to broaden their offer. By rebranding themselves as Entertainment Managers, they can create tailor-made digital experiences for brands, on top of the live experiences they already deliver. It is a new ecosystem of Entertainment Marketing, in which entertainment is the fuel to get the attention of customers in a natural way.

The digital world needs event planners. And event planners clearly need to get rid of that vulnerability to crises.

Written by Laurent Lootens - Lapin Quotidien, owner and Founder of Lapin Quotidien and So-Phi.