CEMA Summit: Agency CEO Roundtable Insights
07.31.2020
By Laliv Hadar, VP of Marketing & Brand, InVision Communications
CEMA Summit: Agency CEO Roundtable Insights
Every year, CEMA Summit brings together marketing and event leaders for an inspiring, fun-filled few days to share best practices, network, and learn. This year, with the global pandemic, the live, in-person version was pivoted into a 2-day digital summit July 27 and 28th-- that proved as engaging and enlightening as ever.
InVision’s CEO, Rod Mickels, moderated an inspiring and thought-provoking roundtable conversation with fellow agency leaders to discuss salient topics impacting the events space at this time. Joining Rod were Bob Priest-Heck, CEO of Freeman, Kim Kopetz, President of Opus, and Chris Meyer, CEO of George P. Johnson.
Here are a few highlights and observations from their conversations:
• The need to shift from the initial chaos and urgency to proactive digital solutions for clients. How to be more agile and being willing to reinvent ourselves in order to best serve our clients.
• The pandemic has fostered better collaboration between departments within our clients’ organizations. We are facilitating broader strategic planning and conversations for our clients to help them take a more integrated, holistic view of their business.
• Creating the best digital experiences starts with the same elements that make great live experiences: storytelling and content – how to select the right channel and how to package effectively. We see hybrid experiences in the near future as the next evolution.
• We’ve seen clients embrace a more evergreen approach to their content, building libraries of materials for their customers, and packaging the content for a longer shelf life. Having a strategic eco-system of content – enabled by a strong digital infrastructure – is smart.
• Several silver lining opportunities coming from the pandemic include innovation; major advancements in technology and communications will emerge out of the struggles in this situation. Also, the opportunity to blow up the status quo of what we’ve always done and reimagine what’s possible.