For virtual events to work, you’ve got to be committed to delivering the best experience for your viewers.
One of our solutions to producing exceptional virtual and hybrid events is partnering with Brandlive, a leading virtual events company setting standards high for brands and their viewers’ thanks to their game-changing platform.
Brandlive’s Chief Product Officer, Thomas Iwasaki, is one of the visionaries dedicated to delivering events like no other. Our SVP of Content, Jason Bernstein, met with Thomas for a compelling discussion on the right strategies for building a platinum virtual event and the state of virtual video.
Together, they expand on joint projects we’ve worked on in the past, as well as create bespoke experiences for clients and partners in both virtual and hybrid digital spaces.
Read on to join their conversation.
Jason Bernstein: Diving right in–what really makes virtual events and the like so successful right now and where things might go for the future?
Thomas Iwasaki: We are really excited about the way that organizations are changing the way they communicate. We think the impact of the pandemic was more or less distributing audiences and our focus is specifically on how that has impacted corporate audiences.
The internal employee base is now distributed and in a hybrid format, you have customers, investors and prospective audiences in different places, different devices, different time zones. What we’ve learned is that companies who master video communications in engaging, consumer-style video formats, and build or invest in new media functions with an understanding towards the value of high quality content to their communication initiatives, are the businesses that are seeing success.
We’re building the tools to support that type of content creation and distribution. And we, of course, love working with you guys to bring that production skillset and the storytelling aspect that really makes these things happen.
JB: What does it mean for you to deliver platinum virtual experiences and how does that come to life?
TI: We think high quality content and production makes all the difference. People live in their little zoom windows all day, and when an important message comes up, that has to feel different. And that means it has to look different and it should to come across in a different channel.
TV level production is really the bar that’s being set. And we follow along with some of the work you’re doing. It inspired our team and we think that’s the future.
JB: How do we make the client understand what premium can be without it always being virtual or hybrid or in this perhaps early pandemic platform solution, but is now an always-on communications solution?
TI: I think when clients get it, they get it. And a lot of times, it’s based on having the experience or seeing the content. For folks who are used to coordinating communications by Zoom, it can be a leap to get their imagination to that next step. So, a lot of times it’s asking when’s your next all-hands meeting? What would success look like for that meeting? What type of engagement do you want to see at that meeting? And once you’re talking about the outcomes that you’re trying to drive, it becomes easier to fill in that picture by sharing pieces of the formula for awesome content creation.
It starts by creating something that’s story driven and creating something that has production value so that the audience can tell that an investment has been made and then they’ll pay attention accordingly.
JB: We’ve worked with a number of partners to bring their internal comms to life in a new way. What are you finding is a really good solution or a good example of some of the solutions that Brandlive offers?
TI: There’s lots of directions to go here, but we are with you guys. The internal audience at these organizations historically has been an audience that’s taken for granted. It’s either a donut at the office and rally around the conference room, or it’s an internal email. Those tactics dont really work in this new hybrid world. And so, paying attention to that audience specifically is something that we’ve done with our Allhands product, which is a video platform meant for communicating inside the organization to the employee base.
We think that video communication is not just something that needs to be mastered in a marketing context–it’s now something that organizations need to learn how to do in order to engage their people, keep people on the same page, energize the teams, and increase their impact.
JB: Would you say internal meetings are due for an evolution?
TI: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are important messages to be shared within the organizations, and that is the most important piece of most of these employees, leaders and executives. Taking the time to communicate in an intentional way with those groups has a big impact. And I think you guys are doing a great job providing these organizations to toolsets to create that content. We’re trying to be right there alongside you, providing the software to distribute and manage content into those audiences in an engaging way.
JB: We are thinking about living life now in the current and hope-to-be post-COVID world. Where does all this engagement, all of these experiences, add up to moving forward? Do you consider a lot of it to be one-off stuff that’ll go back to in-person activations or will it be a hybrid solution?
TI: We think it’s a little bit of a hybrid, but what that means in real terms is that video is always a part of the equation. To have the reach that you need and to have the impact you need, that media capability is going to be something that every organization has to develop.
We’re excited to be building software tools into such a rich area and likewise excited to be partnered with organizations like toldright, who are built around that capability. We think that it’s such an exciting place to be. Where there’s Brandlive, there’s toldright.
Special thanks again to Thomas, for meeting with us to chat. It’s a pleasure to work alongside Brandlive as we push forward and accelerate the digital experience.
Watch the interview
