Designer
Sarah Price
Rob Wellings
Creative Director
Paul Bailes
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Client
Personal Finance Society
Date
November 2017
Deliverables
Branding
Experiential
Offline
Online
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Brief
The Personal Finance Society holds an annual event for its members at which it provides not only networking but also training opportunities given its members are obliged to undertake 35 hours of continuing professional development as a requirement of membership.
Given the geographical spread of the membership, the organisation had previously held a series of events across the company – last year it held 5 smaller regional conferences – but it wanted to hold a single event in 2017 at the NEC in Birmingham.
With an exhibition space of 18,000 square meters to fill, the event needed to attract a sufficient numbers of attendees to not only cover costs but also to ensure a vibrant and lively event atmosphere was generated on the day.
Whilst the Personal Finance Society has a large membership, in order to guarantee a successful event, the pre-event promotion would be critical in driving up both exhibitor and attendee participation.
The client had wanted to move the perception of the conference as a standard, somewhat staid format of networking and talks, so we agreed with them and the event organisers an approach of a ‘festival’ whereby there are always lots of different things happening simultaneously.
Initial concepts were included as part of the brief that looked at how to get across a feeling of being at a festival and also what type of festival would be the most attractive to their audience.
Design
Given the wide demographic age, we felt a ‘Glastonbury music festival’ flower power, bright colours would be likely to be the most appealing since most music festivals had multiple acts performing and the audiences were able to move between acts as to suit their tastes.
This concept was very different from what had previously been done before and allowed us greater creative license.
Our first task was to create marketing material to get exhibitors on board since this was a free event to attend for members. To ensure that as many exhibitors as possible were engaged, a marketing prospectus was created using vibrant colours and a kaleidoscope of colours to form the suggestion of lights emanating from a stage set as people watched on and joined in.
Create
We carried through the theme of fun-filled, packed audiences at a festival in member facing material and used a Woodstock style font to continue the festival vibe. We also created logos and graphic shapes in a number of colours that could be used to highlight either keynote speakers and activities such as festival radio as and when the event details themselves were confirmed.
In all we produced designs and artwork for:
Supporting prospectus to promote sponsorship opportunities to exhibitors
“Festival Survival Kit” artwork for box of ‘pre-event goodies’
Digital assets for the event app used by members – both to promote the event pre and on the day
Digital graphical displays used both pre and at the event
Branded giveaways – including earphones, bags, lanyards, Tshirts for staff at the event
Signage throughout the event – directional, staging
Graphics for a VW camper van at the event
Colourful orientation map of the venue itself
Graphics for the client’s own stand at the event
Press and online advertisements
Tickets for members
Outcome
The festival received the highest number of positive feedback from attendees in terms of overall experience. The hashtag also managed to trend on twitter on the day of the event – unusual for a trade conference, particularly one for financial planning!