Designer
Paul Bailes
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Client
Personal Finance Society
Date
2022
Deliverables
Branding
Online
Offline
Experiential
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Brief
The Personal Finance Society hold a conference annually but, once every few years, the standard conference format is set aside in favour of one that consists of standard conference sessions combined with much more of a celebration of the financial planning community. It is held at the ICC Birmingham and is fast becoming The event to attend.
Cohesion has previously been involved with creating the original event ID and we were engaged to once again making the event a marketing success for the Personal Finance Society.
We were tasked to continue to evolve the event’s festival feel and to extend the branding throughout the event and all associated assets.
Think
The ICC is a large venue and it was important to PFS that the event did not feel ‘lost’ in such a significant space. It was also important that the Festival stood out in a crowded conference season. Given the success of the first festival back in 2017, PFS wanted to build the theme of a ‘music style’ festival. After presenting different options, the preferred choice was the ‘spotlight’ background combined with ‘light colourwheel’ since it combined the subliminal association of stage lighting used at music concerts.
Design
Having agreed the concept, we further refined the light colourwheel palette to give maximum flexibility to PFS’ event coordinators in helping to use the ID to shape the event. We looked at how the lightwheel could be used on digitial marketing by the introduction of animation. We also collaborated with PFS and the event coordinators to agree application on a wide range of collateral.
Create
Prior to the event a series of teaser web banners and adverts for the PFS Member magazine were created. A sponsorship brochure was created to assist the sales team generate stand bookings.
As a large venue, we designed and produced a range of POS from directional floor vinyls, digital adverts, signs and stage branding to the conference pass and fold-out exhibition floorplan and itinerary.
Outcome
The bright engaging colours of the identity and simple animation used to good effect helped to communicate PFS messaging throughout the day, including to promote and thank 3rd party sponsors. Overall the branding and application achieved the festival feel PFS wanted. A comprehensive event programme had been put together and we were able to create a useful event timetable and venue map which again employed elements from the identity to tie everything together. Finally, we also used some of the ID elements to design the PFS’ own stand at the event.
Close collaboration with the PFS appointed events organisers throughout the process meant between us all we were able to maximum the brand identity in a cost effective way through clever use of colour and lighting to create colourful themed auditoriums each with a distinct yet cohesive festival feel across the event.
The event was extremely successful with 2,300 delegates attending – the largest PFS event to date.