SMYLE X ARM FLAGSHIP ANNUAL PARTNER MEETING

Smyle worked with ARM to pull off their three-day Annual Partner Meeting. Our live and virtual teams came up with creative ideas for storytelling and exciting brand activations around Cambridge, with Smyle also providing full production for the APM.

MAILI ‘MY POWER’ CELEBRATES WOMEN AND CHALLENGES THE JUDGEMENT THEY FACE

Aesthetic filler brand MaiLi by Sinclair Pharmaceuticals wanted to gain better traction with practitioners and patients. A fresh approach was required, focused on building an emotional connection with target audiences.

To start the campaign, Smyle and MaiLi commissioned an international survey of 10,000 women, and the resulting insights were clear: women constantly face judgement and society tries to take down powerful women. ‘My Power’ was created to disrupt that narrative and cast MaiLi as an authentic ally to women, promoting and celebrating their power (whether or not they choose to get fillers) and encouraging society to #SayNoToJudgement.

Smyle launched the content-driven ‘My Power’ campaign with an international multi-channel marketing activation covering social media, influencer marketing, digital paid media, events, PR, an updated brand website and an anthem campaign video produced by Dreamlike State. Influencer marketing brought the message’s authenticity to life through other powerful voices. The strategy was to encourage influencers to share their views on judgement and ‘My Power’ whilst including the global or local MaiLi handle in the description.

The three-phase marketing approach has finished Phase One (March – June 2023), with Phase Two moving customers from brand awareness into action against the societal judgement of women.

Key Takeaways:

  • 3.3 million users reached across the globe
  • 5.5 million Instagram impressions
  • 1 million + Youtube views of anthem video
  • 93% increase in Instagram profile visits
  • 1,047% increase in Facebook profile engagement

Life Unstoppable, ‘House of Surprises’

Fusing storytelling and branded entertainment in this interactive experience. This activation allowed viewers to interact as if in a gaming engine, with the quality and storytelling of film and the ability to click to buy throughout the experience.

The Challenge

Provide an innovative launch for Samsung’s newest range of connected products from its ‘Life Unstoppable’ series to engage partners, press and consumers, challenging what is possible with online experiences.

The Approach

After the success of last year’s “Life Unstoppable”, which took more of a game-based approach, Smyle rethought the boundaries of customer experience by implementing a new approach to online consumer engagement. Viewers could watch and shop at the same time, not so much e-commerce but rather “e-xperience”. Samsung also used the e-xperience to maximise reach – overcoming issues of scale inherent with activations limited to a physical location. 

 

Unlike purely physical experiential, in the e-xperience everything is measurable and trackable. From social time spent in the experience, to interactions, to direct sales on brands’ websites. The data was fed directly into Samsung’s CRM providing invaluable insight. The blend of experience and e-commerce allowed us to measure the KPIs, creating a clearer correlation between the objectives and our solution. 

 

The e-xperience was delivered through interactive video. It followed an eclectic family at home, in a Wes Anderson-style film as they used the new Samsung range in ever more inventive ways. The story was stitched together with a series of vignettes that demonstrated Samsung’s innovations, together with an entertaining narrative that drew in the audience. Visitors to the house were guided from room-to-room and vignette-to-vignette, but could also take control of the navigation by clicking on the rooms and products too – fusing the best elements of gaming with filmic storytelling. Products became hotspots and with a click participants could stop the action and deep dive, or jump to the local market Samsung online store to make an immediate purchase. 

The film was shot in a large studios, and stands out because of its heavy art direction and visual style combined with innovative technologies employed. To produce the high quality mini-movie, Smyle drew from its expertise in set design, filming video production, digital production, VFX and motion control. Smyle additionally worked with Free Turn with the film being directed by Jel Groman, responsible for hits such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Daredevils and Born in the Wrong Body.

The Result

Launched in 17 countries across Europe, it delivered a one-of-a-kind customer experience, where people were able to see exactly how products would fit into their daily lives. Smyle blended entertainment, experiential marketing and e-commerce to tailor the launch to consumer’s needs. Additionally, to reach people in this ‘most broadcast to erra’, you have to be creative, you have to find new ways of telling stories, because we’re in experience, marketing, brand and PR. We’re storytellers.

  • 3740 attendees 
  • 60% of viewers watched the full 45 minute show
  • Over 4000 consumers with a 1000 click to buy actions
  • Interactivity stats exceeded averages:
    • 29% active audience share
    • 3.51 Interactions per active viewer

Winner of Best Interactive Event Video at Wirewax Interactive Awards 2021

Winner of Best Brand Experience B2B at Campaign Experience Awards 2022

Winner of Best Use of Video Content and Best Use of Technology at EVCOM Awards 2022

Wella breaks the internet with the world’s largest digital hair experience

This experience allowed Wella to pivot into digital and reach a wider audience than ever before. To hold the attention of busy hair professionals, we designed an interactive TV-style event with something for everyone. Content was voiced in 11 languages and the entire event was held twice on the day of the event, allowing the global audience to choose a start time best suited to their location. The initial 10,000 viewers target was smashed with over 77,000 registrations, and 25,000 joining on the day!

The Challenge

With IRL events impossible in 2020, we connected hair professional across the world and shared everything wonderful about Wella through a ground-breaking digital event.

The Approach

Accessible to beauty professionals around the world and free to join, the Wella WE Create event allowed the brand to pivot into digital and reach a wider audience than ever before.

To hold the attention of busy hair professionals, we designed an interactive TV-style event with something for everyone. Lots of rich topics, carefully curated, contrasting styles, and short, snappy bite-sized content, all wrapping around longer, more in-depth features. In an innovative move, the event delivered two channels of streaming content, broadcast simultaneously over two hours – with attendees free to skip between channels, or catch anything they missed later by watching on demand.

Involving more than 20 of the world’s most accomplished hair artists, WE Create shared styling transformations, trend insights, hair hacks, business advice and sustainability tips. The event also hosted the International TrendVision Awards, with 7 category gold winners announced live. WE Create also featured two new hair collections, designed during the pandemic by 13 guest artists around the world, collaborating by Zoom to ensure a coherent vision.

To cater to an 86% mobile-first audience, we custom-built our own hosting platform. Content was voiced in 11 languages and the entire event was held twice on Sunday, allowing the global audience to choose a start time best suited to their location.

The Result

The WE Create event was something completely new, setting a new benchmark for the industry. The audience was global. The content was global. And the guest artists were globally renowned, all brought together through WE Create.

With an initial target of 10,000 viewers, over 77,000 ultimately registered, with 25,000 joining the event on the day, generating 66,000 interactions in the chat – and pushing our platform to its limits. A further 10,000 watched material after the event on demand.

National Grid amplifies impact with first ever hybrid investor conference

Smyle partnered closely with National Grid leadership to position the brand at the centre of the energy transition to a critically important audience of investors, media and consumers. This hybrid experience was held live at the ExCeL London for approximately 200 delegates and online using the Bizzabo platform for 600 participants.

The Challange

To position National Grid at the centre of the energy transition.

The Approach

National Grid has a solid reputation but was concerned that a lot of its innovative UK and US energy transformation work was not sufficiently understood. Our solution was to make the company easier to understand, and bring to life the innovation and ‘sexiness’ of this engineering focused organisation.

For its Investor Day in November 2021 we advised that National Grid run a truly hybrid event. This would involve 100 people attending a physical event at the ExCeL in London and a much larger online international audience. Both audiences were to be catered for in an integrated digital and physical experience. 

Research led us to develop the event theme ‘Doing Right Now’. This conjoins the ideas that the company is ‘doing right’ in the energy transition, and doing it ‘right now’. To demonstrate this, we showcased the unsung experts around the company that are making energy transition happen. We also used storytelling about key initiatives as indicative of what the larger business is all about.

Smyle camera crews captured the event in real time, all footage was fed through Smyle’s gallery and managed by its central studio team. Footage was live streamed to the online audience using the latest Bizzabo platform, with interactive elements for virtual participants built into each session. The live audience rotated between three innovative breakout session experiences, and the virtual audience had an exclusive digital-only rotation with a camera and host onsite curating their experience.

The Result

The success of an investor event is both qualitative (the audience regards the company more positively) and quantitative (the investment community promotes it in research advice and/or invests in the company’s stock). While the direct financial impact is hard to discern, we used audience surveying to understand the impact on the perception of National Grid at the centre of the energy transition, as well as perceptions of quality of content and interaction. The hybrid nature of the occasion allowed audiences in the UK and US to become immersed in National Grid’s strategy and performance.

Iconic Trend Vision Awards returns in-person and explodes online

We reimagined the famous Trend Vision Awards with a new hybrid approach delivered concurrently to an audience of 1,200 at London’s Roundhouse, and broadcast to thousands at home. A stand-out production, a sell-out physical event and 100% uplift achieved for the digital audience – all to rave reviews!

The Challange

Get close to the professional hair community through the competition and to showcase Wella products and services through the whole event – physically, digitally, socially and in trade marketing.

The Approach

As one of the most prestigious awards in the hairdressing industry, the pressure was on for the event itself to be similarly cutting-edge and creative. We took on the content creation, production and creative design of the event. Our goal was to deliver a truly hybrid awards ceremony, one that retained traditional aspects everybody loves but with a new exciting digital dimension added. We did this by keeping the classic elements of the iconic ceremony’s in-person glitz and glamour, and adding a simultaneous specially curated livestream that would do Hollywood proud. The number of people involved was huge: over 150 crew, over 100 artists, stylists, models, makeup artists & wardrobe designers for the collection showcases and 90 models with 180 stylists and assistants for the TVA competition.

The live element of the show was hosted by Fearne Cotton and hairdressing icon, Patrick Cameron, who introduced exclusive collection launches from big brands such as GHD, Robert Eaton, D&J Ambrose and HOB Salons, as well as special guests and a catwalk show. Digital guests not only enjoyed this, but also, during an hour-long broadcast hosted by Radio X presenter Elsbeth Pierce, they enjoyed exclusive backstage footage and interviews with stars of the hairdressing world.

The Result

A sell out physical event and 100% uplift achieved for the digital event. Both in-person and online guests were treated to a night to remember, with exclusive features and new components such as the catwalk show. The concentration of big names and faces drew new crowds and the event’s hybrid platform gave the awards more visibility.

IMEX: BuzzHub

Maintaining attendee engagement ahead of IMEX America 2021.

The Brief

Use Smyle’s knowledge of virtual events to create experiences that are fun, rewarding and continuously evolving. 

The Approach

With the coming return of IMEX America as a physical event in November 2021 we developed the IMEX Buzzhub. This is a branded online community built using Swapcard – an end-to-end event platform with customisable elements powered by artificial intelligence, along with additional add-on technologies like Gather.town for tailored community experiences.

Everything we did focused on delivering value to event professionals. Speakers, key content and fringe activities and even sponsored elements all added value and kept the audience connected to the IMEX brand. 

The highlights of the campaign were the three ‘Buzz Days’. Each had its own theme (‘Building back better’, ‘Extreme innovation’ and ‘Future focus’) and each was packed with fun presentations, opportunities to interact with speakers and time set aside to ‘just talk’ about areas of mutual interest. In a bid to keep innovating, each Buzz Day had a mix of activities and formats. Participants had choices of what they could do: listen to a thought-leading speaker, ask questions in an intimate Q&A, or join a forum. But it wasn’t all work-focused and enabling authentic human interaction between participants was encouraged. There was even a co-located Buzz Day, where attendees could jump between two entirely different events, and another aimed just at the large German audience – broadcast entirely in German.

The Results

IMEX and Smyle worked in a collaborative way to make the IMEX BuzzHub a success. Over 2,300 professionals registered with 400-800 session views each month. Participant feedback scored an average of 4.5 out of 5 for all content and experiences. The primary goal of the campaign was to keep IMEX front-of-mind and encourage attendance at the November 2021 show in Las Vegas. With 582 BuzzHub participants indicating that the experience positively impacted their likelihood to attend (and lots of content sharing across social channels), we can take at least some of the credit for the 5,000+ that turned up for the main event, which was buzzing with energy. In one final push, Smyle delivered live content from the show floor for BuzzHub virtual participants during the show.